024. A Better Kind of Grieving

---- Every day in the media we hear about horrible accidents, infant deaths, marital breakdowns, impending divorces, loss of employment, medical traumas, emotional problems, death of old acquaintances. ----- Friends, I can say with great certainty, that you have some losses coming your way, and so do I. 

It would be wise for us to enrol in a grief and trauma management course. But we’d better enrol in the right course because the stakes are high, and there’s more than one course being offered, and some of them are - not - very – good – at - all. 

Our key Bible verse is … 

PP 1 Thessalonians 4:13 (M.L. Bible) 

“But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve like others do, who have no hope.” 

The verse suggests there’s more than one way to grieve losses. The verse also suggests that the Biblical approach to grieving is a hopeful approach, and maybe the others aren’t quite so hope filled. 

In this message on … 

PP1 A BETTER KIND OF GRIEVING 

I’d like to summarize … 2 

PP2A Society’s Approach 

… to grief and trauma management, and contrast that with … 

PP2B God’s Approach 

… to grief and trauma management. You, friends, decide which one is better. 

------ First, here is Society’s Approach to grief management. John James and Frank Cherry, in their book on grief recovery, trace the story of a boy named Johnny. When Johnny is five years old his dog dies. Johnny is grief stricken, and he bursts out crying. His dog was his constant companion; it slept at the foot of his bed. It played with him. Now the dog is gone, and little Johnny is devastated. 

Johnny’s dad stammers a bit and says, “Uh, don’t feel bad, Johnny, we’ll get you a new dog on the week-end.” In that one sentence, Johnny’s dad is really offering the first two steps in society’s grief management programme: 

PP3 1. Bury your feelings (and) 

PP4 2. Replace the loss 

Once you have the new dog, you won’t even think about the old dog any more. 

----- Well, later, when Johnny falls in love with a girl at high school, the world never looked brighter, until she dumps him. Suddenly a curtain covers the sun. Johnny’s heart is broken, and this time it’s big-time hurt. It’s not just a dog. This is a person his heart was fixed on. 3 

John is a wreck. But mom comes to the rescue this time and says with great sensitivity, “Don’t feel bad, John, there are plenty of other fish in the ocean.” 

So here it is again in Society’s Approach to grief management … 

1. Bury your feelings 

(“Don’t feel bad John”) 

and 

2. Replace the loss 

(“John, there are plenty of other fish in the ocean.”) 

Johnny has steps one and two down pat now. He’ll use them for the rest of his life. 

------ Much later, John’s grandfather dies – the one he fished with every summer and was so close to. A note was slipped to him in the maths class. He read the note and couldn’t fight back the tears. He broke down sobbing at his desk. The teacher felt uncomfortable about it and sent him off to the school office to grieve alone. 

When John’s father brought him home from school, John saw his mother weeping in the living room, and he wanted to embrace her and cry with her. But his dad said, “Don’t disturb her, John, she needs to be alone. She’ll be alright in a little while. Then the two of you can talk.” 

The third piece in the grieving puzzle was now making sense to John …. 

PP5 3. Grieve alone 

So he went to his room to cry alone, and he felt a deep, deep sense of loneliness. 4 

Eventually he buried those feelings, and he replaced the sense of loss over his grandfather with a whole host of athletic involvements. He tried his best to function normally. But he found himself many months later constantly thinking about his grandpa: the fishing trips, the Christmas Eves, the birthdays. 

His preoccupation went on for months until he finally told his dad about it. His dad said, “John, give it time.” Translation … 

PP6 4. Let time heal 

This became step four in John’s understanding of grief management. 

Have you been keeping track? 

1. Bury your feelings 

2. Replace the loss 

3. Grieve alone 

4. Let time heal 

Well, John gave it time and more time, but somehow he felt trapped in a prison cell of sadness. What made matters worse was that as he relived his relationship with his grandfather, he realised that he had never really thanked his grandpa for all the fishing trips, the picnic lunches that Grandpa had brought along, and the late afternoon swims when the fish weren’t biting. 

He had left so many things unsaid – even the big one: “I love you, Grandpa.” He didn’t get to say it. John now realized the importance of saying nice things to people while they are still alive, because they can’t read the nice things we put on their tombstones. It’s too late! 

Friends, please take the time to genuinely tell your family and friends that you love them, before it’s too late. 5 

John said to himself, “What can I do about it now that grandpa’s gone? I guess I’ll just have to live with regret for the rest of my life.” ----- That became the fifth piece of his philosophy toward grief management: If there’s unfinished business, plan to ... 

PP7 5. Live with regret 

... there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. 

As you can imagine, with all the trauma, John does a little bit of elementary relational maths, and he reasons to himself: Close relationships expose me to the possibility of deep pain; therefore, the way to make sure that this kind of pain is never experienced again is to keep at arm’s length from any close involvement. 

So here comes Step 6. Wall up and ... 

PP8 6. Never trust again 

Don’t get so close to people that their absence could hurt you deeply. - The sixth step makes the world’s conventional grief management approach complete. 

Let’s review. 

1. Bury your feelings. 

2. Replace the loss. 

3. Grieve alone. 

4. Let time heal. 

5. Live with regret. 

6. Never trust again. 

How does that sound? It sounds familiar. It’s been society’s approach for years. 6 

Eighty-five percent of us have most of those pieces in place in our system. Is grief recovery really happening, or are there lots of people walking around with deep wounds on the inside, which screw up their daily lives and relationships? ---- 

Could this be you too? 

----- It was a shock to learn how many grief-laden people wind up in the ditches of alcoholism, drug dependence, workaholism, ongoing dependence on counsellors, broken relationships, and compulsive eating and compulsive spending patterns – all seemingly driven by an inability to recover and rebuild their lives after experiencing one or more devastating losses. 

The message, friends, is loud and clear … 

PP 1 If we grieve wrongly, we’re in big trouble. 

----- But here’s a new thought coming …. 

PP 2 If we grieve correctly, we can live well afterwards. 

Some time ago in the United States, baseball pitching ace Donny Moore couldn’t seem to resolve his anguish over losing an American League championship series game. In a moment of total torment, he shot his wife and then shot himself. ----- 

But compare that with Dave Dravecky, who loses not only a game but a career, a livelihood, and his pitching arm, and his shoulder from cancer. He energetically rebuilt his life and moved forward to whatever life might bring. ----- Friends, it’s very important that we grieve correctly. ----- 

I have given you a quick look at society’s approach to grieving. -----You’ve probably tried society’s way. ------- Let me give you a taste 7 

of God’s approach to grieving. I’m going to contrast society’s approach with God’s approach, point for point. 

Society’s approach says … 

PP Step 1. Bury your feelings. 

God’s approach says exactly the opposite; He says, Step 1 … 

PP 1. Feel your feelings 

and express them. Don’t bury them. Don’t deny them. Don’t discount them. Don’t put on a false front of bravery.’ – a mask! 

1 Thessalonians 4:13, our key verse, talks about grieving. Don’t grieve inappropriately, but do grieve. There is hope beyond grief if you work through grief. 

One day Jesus hears that his close friend Lazarus had died. Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha, were special friends of Jesus. Jesus travels to the town where he meets the two sisters. The crowd is waiting, holding its breath, wondering what the Son of God is going to do when he stands outside the tomb of one of his closest friends. The Scripture says in … 

PP John 11:35 “Jesus wept.” 

It’s the shortest verse in the Bible, but such an important one for us. 

------- My Mum died. ------- She was carrying a cup of tea down to my Dad, at the bottom of the steps. And she had a heart attack, fell, and died. ---- 

----- I was a black sheep in my family. I’d left home when I was a kid, and I just couldn’t seem to fit in. Went out into the big world 8 

and did just about anything that opened and shut. My family disowned me, and for right reasons too I’m sure. --------- And I thought to myself, “I don’t think my Mum or Dad would ring me up to tell me about the funeral if the other one died. --------- Well, interestingly, about a week after my Mum had died, my Dad must have decided that he should ring me up. ------ He rang me to tell me that Mum was getting buried that morning. So I quickly had a shower and got changed into some decent clothes and raced off in the car. It was about an hour and a half’s drive to get there. And I got to the cemetery just in time to see my family and friends shovelling the dirt in on the top of my Mum’s coffin. ------ 

------ As I stood there and looked at the different folk, I thought, I’d known those people from 40 years back when I was a kid and left home. 

----I saw my little sister there, and I saw my big brother there, and I saw other people I used to know from so long back. People who had dumped me because I wasn’t a really good person. And that’s OK. ---- I understand that. ---- If you’d known me, you’d understand it too. 

As I stood and watched those people who I used to know as friends so long ago, Some different feelings started to well up inside me. 

----- 40 years earlier, I had a motto, that I’d coined as I walked through life, and here it is. 

PP 

“Trust none 

Love a few 

Learn to paddle 

your own canoe.” 

Yes, that was my motto. And as I thought about things after I went away from that funeral, I started to write a letter to my sister. And it actually took me three weeks to write it. I was very busy in business and whenever I got a bit of spare time I’d write some more of the letter. Finally, sixteen pages later, it was finished. ------ 9 

While I was writing the letter, I did a lot of crying, remembering stuff that I’d pushed away into the back of my mind over the years because I didn’t want to remember the past. 

I had also believed, that men don’t cry! “You’re a man! Men don’t cry.” But I cried a lot while I was writing that letter. I was spitting out stuff from my past that I didn’t realise had been hurting me inside. It had built up and it was like a back-pack on my back weighing me down. It was baggage I’d been carrying around with me for many, many, years. And now, I was finally getting rid of it. I had always believed that you could burn your bridges and simply move on. ----- But it wasn’t quite true. ----- 

------ I remember a school teacher when I was a kid at school. His name was Mr Grayson. We called him Grub Grayson and we used to give him a lot of trouble. One day, in the classroom, he broke down crying in front of us and we just laughed at him. We laughed at him all the more because there he was, a grown man crying. --- And he said something to us boys that I at least, have never forgotten. He said, 

PP1 “You know boys, it takes a man to cry.” 

I’ve never forgotten that. ------ 

PP2 Men need to cry sometimes to release the pain. 

------ So friends, … 

PP 

Those two words in the Bible, “Jesus wept”, speak volumes about grief management. 

I think people all over the world and throughout history would be well-served by watching Jesus weep. It might give them permission to weep. Weeping is called the language of the soul. The cleansing river of emotional release. ------- 10 

----- A lady’s little daughter was brain damaged. This is what the mother wrote in a letter. ----- “I can hardly bear it sometimes. My most recent wave of grief came just last year before her 16th birthday. As the day approached, I found myself brooding over all the things that she would never be able to do. What did I do? What I’ve learned to do again and again; I did what I believe is the only thing to conquer grief, and that is to embrace it. So I cried and cried and cried, and faced the truth of my grief head on.” ------ 

----- Friends, … 

PP People who feel their feelings and express them freely begin the journey toward hope. 

I wonder how many of you have felt free enough to grieve your losses – not just deaths, but other smaller losses, financial losses even. ---- God says to us today, “Look how my Son, Jesus Christ, responded to a deep loss. He wept. So go ahead, let the cleansing rivers flow.” ------ 

----- Now, Society’s second step is to … 

PP Replace the loss 

as soon as you can. Turn the page. Fix it quick. Move on. Don’t hang out in sad places because it’ll ruin your karma. ----- 

---- Scripture teaches – exactly - the opposite. God’s approach, step two in the grieving process, says, Don’t just replace your loss … 

PP2 Review your loss 

Hang out in the sad place long enough to allow the full effect of the loss to settle into your heart and mind. ------ 11 

A seasoned Christian counsellor was asked what she advises people to do when they’re dealing with their losses. She said … 

PP “Of course I tell them to feel their feelings. But then I also urge people to reduce radically the pace of their lives. I urge them to review their loss, talk about it openly, think about it thoroughly, write about it reflectively, and pray through it.” 

She continued, “It’s my experience that people want to run from their pain. They want to replace pain with another feeling as soon as they can. But to recover from pain, you have to face it. You must stand in it and process it before it will go away. That’s God’s way.” ----- 

My brother and I are the black sheep in my family. Our family rejected us. My solution – burn the bridges, run from the pain, do other things to fill the void. 

I embraced business and many other things and eventually wrote this little booklet … 

PP “12 Fundamentals for a Successful Life” (photo of booklet) 

I started writing it as a letter to give to our business customers. A letter to encourage them to set goals in life and move forward positively. -- Well the letter got longer and longer so I got it printed as a little booklet to give away. 

They’re all good things. All to do with success, but these good things helped me to run from another pain – the pain of losing my family. ----- 

PP Is anybody here running from pain today? Are you trading in your pain prematurely for some other feeling? That’s not God’s way. –---------------- 12 

PP (chart) 

The third step in society’s approach to grieving is to grieve alone. God’s approach is exactly the opposite. ---- 

PP (add to chart) 3. Grieve in community 

The Bible has hundreds of texts urging the broken-hearted to band together with family and friends in order to grieve in community. Once again, Jesus, when His upcoming death was looming large in His mind, grabbed Peter, James and John, and He said, “Come to a quiet place with me. A loss is coming and I need some brothers around me. So pray with me and hold me up.” 

Apparently Jesus’ followers learned well to grieve in community, because after Jesus’ crucifixion, His followers were grieving together in community when the knock on the door came announcing the resurrection of the Saviour. Grieving in community can bring both healing and bondedness. Some of you know that. 

Society’s approach, you remember, is bury your feelings, replace the loss, grieve alone. God’s approach is: 

1. Feel your feelings 

2. Review your loss 

3. Grieve in community 

------ Step four, society says, is that time will heal. Step four in God’s approach is that only ... 

PP 4. The Holy Spirit will heal 

In the Bible, God’s Holy Spirit is called the Comforter - The Comforter. ---- 13 

---- Fifty years ago, industrialists thought they could just bury toxic waste and it would go away. We have since learned it doesn’t just go away. It makes trouble. It leaks into the water table, contaminates crops, and kills animals. Buried grief does the same thing. Raw time doesn’t heal a thing. Buried pain leaks into our emotional system and wreaks havoc there. It distorts our perceptions of life, and it taints our relationships. That contamination happens subconsciously. 

Many times people don’t know what’s making their world so cloudy or why there’s a river of sadness underneath it. They say, “It wouldn’t go back to the loss in my childhood, or the loss nine years ago.” -- Don’t-be-so-sure. Time just by itself doesn’t heal a thing. God’s approach says feel your feelings, stand in your pain, review your loss, grieve in community, and -- humbly ask God to give you His Spirit to heal your broken heart in His time. ----- 

------ That doesn’t mean we’re not going to carry some scars. We won’t ever be the same after a tragic loss. But we’ll be able to move forward without that mysterious contamination that we just described. Your emotions can start working properly again. Your perceptions and relationships can get cleared up. 

PP Sharon Morris (writes) 

“Finally, a remarkable thing happens. You notice that for short periods of time the hurt is not so great any more, and this signals the beginning of healing.” 

That’s what God’s Spirit does. ----- 

PP (full chart) 

------ Fifth, society’s approach says, if you have unfinished business with someone you can’t contact or who dies, get used to living with 14 

regret because there’s not a thing you can do about it. ------ God’s approach to grief management says, “Oh yes, you can still ... 

PP 5. Express your regrets 

----- There’s a theme running like a river under the whole story line of the Bible. The theme is reconciliation. Of course, the major motive of the Bible is for all people to be reconciled to God through Jesus, His Son. But close on the heels of that major motive is the call for people to be reconciled to each other, to speak the truth in love, and soften their hearts toward each other so that they can be in relationship with each other. 

The Bible offers an amazing provision for people who have unfinished business with someone who won’t or can’t reconcile because they’re unforgiving or because they’ve died. The provision is found in... 

PP Romans 12:18 (which says) 

“If possible, as far as it depends upon you, live at peace with everyone.” 

This verse helps me to think that you can finish your part of the unfinished business with anybody. You can live without the nagging feeling that you won’t ever be able to make amends in that relationship. I’ll give you an example. 

A young man had a tension-filled relationship with his father. In the middle of all the hostility, his dad died of a heart attack. The sadness over all that unfinished business just about overwhelmed the young man. Year after year it was destroying his life. --- Finally a wise Christian counsellor took him to that verse in Romans 12:18. Over the next six months, he and that counsellor discussed all the destructive dynamics of his relationship with his dad. They processed all the pain. That led the counsellor to challenge the 15 

young man to write a final letter to his dad in order to express the unexpressed and bring closure to the bad relationship. 

The young man said that was the most difficult assignment of his whole life. He wrote a thirty page letter, which he read word for word to his mom, and his brothers and sisters, in the presence of the counsellor. He said, “When that was over, a weight was lifted that I had carried for almost ten years.” He made peace on his side of the equation. ------ 

God’s approach says you don’t have to carry a backpack of regret for the rest of your natural life. You can still reconcile your side of the relationship. You can still say what you need to say before God and a few trusted friends. ---- Some of us need to cut off that backpack. We need to grieve God’s way. ---- 

Finally, society’s approach says, … 

PP (chart) 6. Never trust again. 

Once burned, twice smart; once a loss cuts you deeply, wall up and never let it happen to you again. ----- 

---- Now please listen carefully. This last point makes perfect sense to me. I think it’s sound counsel for anybody who doesn’t have Jesus in their lives. Let me explain. 

A few years ago, a couple lost their house in a fire. Fortunately, they were able to snatch all their kids out just before the whole thing collapsed. They stood out on the footpath hugging and kissing and thanking God. Why? Because despite the fact that they had lost their shelter, they had not lost their treasure, which was their kids. 16 

That loss was a knock down but not a knock out. ----- The Bible teaches that when a sinner recognizes his sin before God and looks to God for forgiveness and grace, God will grant it on the basis of what Jesus did on the cross. When that salvation transaction occurs, that man or woman suddenly realizes the certainty of Jesus in their lives. He-becomes-their-treasure----The Bible then promises, from cover to cover, that Jesus Christ, the treasure at the centre of your life, is not vulnerable to any destructive force or power in this world. Jesus said in, ... 

PP Matthew 28:20 

“... lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” 

(translated) - “You might lose your shelter, or your fortune, or your spouse, or your kids, or your health, but you will never lose Me. Never, never, never.” 

----- Because Christians never lose what is central to their being, they are capable of recovering from any loss that comes their way – 

any – loss! -- not easily, not overnight, but eventually, through the steps that we’ve outlined in God’s approach to grief management. 

------ Sometimes people outside the family of God do a very dangerous thing. They put something or someone in that central place of their heart, where only Jesus should be. Some people outside the family of God put something or someone in the centre of their life and make it their treasure. 

Friends, when that treasure gets ripped out of their lives, the pain is unbelievable. Their lives cave in. The reason for living goes up in smoke or gets lowered into a six-foot hole. It only stands to reason, if you lose the centre of your life, there’s only one thing to do. Wall up and never put yourself in that position again. Once burned, twice smart. ----- 17 

----- Now, God’s approach to grieving says, “People, you matter to Me whoever you are. I know how I made you. You’re too fragile to have your treasure ripped out. So, do yourself a favour. Admit your need for God’s help and for forgiveness. Make Jesus ---- your first - treasure. He will be secure.” --- 

That will change your whole perspective. If we take some hits and losses, we’ll know that all is well in the centre of our souls. ------ After a time of feeling our feelings and reviewing our losses and grieving in community and allowing God’s Spirit to heal us and reconciling all our regrets, because of the strength at the centre of our lives, we will be able to ... 

PP 6. Engage in relationships again. Life can go on. 

------ There we have it. Two approaches to grief management. Society’s approach and God’s approach. They’re distinctly different. We’ve got to make a choice about it. ---- 

---- What are you going to do when the phone rings and brings a message that kicks you in the stomach? What are you going to do when the doctor walks out of the room with that look on his face, or your boss says, “I’m sorry, you’re fired.”, when the person you love says, “I’m out of here.”. 

----- What are you going to do? ----- Whose grief management programme will you choose? ------ Which way are you going? ----- The stakes are very high. ------ I hope, and God hopes, that you make the right choice now, before tragedy strikes. ------ 

Friends, I hope and pray, that you will choose God’s way, for a better kind of grieving. 

(after 5 seconds add the following PP) 18 

PP 

Friends, if you have been blessed and challenged by this message, 

then please take time now to send it on to your friends.