When I hear the word grief, all I can picture is a black void with echoes of mourning. Whereas when I hear the word sad, I imagine a person crying, grief is something different. It is an emotion that cripples its victims, sucking all the pleasure and euphoria out of their lives. Sadly, it is also an emotion that we must all face at one point or another. But I cannot simply think of grief as an emotion; it is a monster that has uprooted my entire life.
A wrinkle in time
Lorna Shore, “Pain Remains I: Dancing Like Flames,” track #8 on Pain Remains, Century Media Records 2022
Take what is left of my life
Before you go, show me what it’s like to finally know
The face behind the silhouette
In this world I made to be infinite
But within the expanse, I finally see
A world without you isn’t meant for me
The Gift that Keeps on Giving
Over the past several weeks, grief has truly come back to haunt me. It is the gift that keeps on giving. While much of this grief comes from the loss of my mother five years ago, there are far more ways in which grief manifests. Whether it is the grief of losing my religion or the grief that I relapsed on alcohol and became suicidal last year, grief continues to haunt. It seems that it never ends.
It is simply too easy to say that I have accepted all my losses. But that would be lying, and I do not wish to do that. This is the part where grief becomes convoluted to most people. Some think and encourage grievers to “just accept it.” If it were this simple, I would not be on antidepressants. I would not have visited over five mental health facilities in five years. And, oddly enough, I would probably still be a Christian.
Grief and Suffering
Grief is the most painful aspect of my suffering, especially when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. At this time, I was still a devout Christian. I believed that God could and would remove her pain, if he only desired to. But I also believed that I did something to warrant this. Was it because I was addicted to porn at the time? Or because my alcoholism began to bud? Did God give her a terminal disease because I did not spend enough time in prayer?
As I have mentioned before, we tend to think that suffering is the result of something bad we have done. As the line of thinking goes: we sin, thus God punishes us with suffering. This is an absolutely terrible and archaic theology. Sadly, it is still prevalent in contemporary Christianity. Is adhering to this idea a way of living by the Logos?
No, it is not. We cannot find a greater portrait of this answer than in the book of Job. Let’s explore an example below.
“Think back: what innocent person has perished?
Since when are the upright destroyed?
8 What I see is that those who plow sin
and sow trouble reap just that (Job 4:7-8, NIV)
Aha! These words are in the Bible… therefore they must be true! But, that is not how hermeneutics work. I know hardline evangelicals like to insist that the Bible is inerrant (it is not), but I am not writing this to argue about inerrancy. I am using this as an example. When you isolate a passage from its original context, its meaning can change drastically. This is rarely a good thing.
Such is the case in Job 4. The passage in question comes from one of the antagonists of Job, Elifaz. Elifaz is one of Job’s three friends who provides him with scorn and faulty theologies during his time of suffering. What does God have to say about these ‘friends?’ In Job 42:7, God says to Elifaz, “My anger is blazing against you and your two friends, because, unlike my servant Iyov [Job], you have not spoken rightly about me.”
Ouch. Immediately, all that comes to mind is my Christian friends who, as my mother was dying and I was questioning God, would imply that I did something to secure a spot on God’s blacklist. These former friends meant well, and I can recognize that, but they caused a lot more damage in my life. I believed I had, indeed, pissed God off and because of this, he made my life miserable.
Someone who is grieving has enough on their plate. They do not need to be reminded of their mistakes, sin, or choices. In our culture, grief almost immediately begins with the question, “What have I done to deserve this?” Nobody needs to give answers to that question. True students of the Bible will try to redirect the griever, gently encouraging them to find better ways of coping with the grief.
Grief and the Healer?
Another response of modern Christianity is the reminder of God’s love for the brokenhearted. This one is hard to write about because of how fragile the topic is. I do not, in any way whatsoever, wish to discourage belief in a higher power and I do not intend to do so. While I do not necessarily put my faith in the God of the Bible, I know that this has helped many people through the process of grief.
And, I encourage this. Spirituality is vital to recovering from grief. However, this does not mean that we cannot acknowledge our hurts. While it is easy to say “God will wipe away your tears” and “God is near to the brokenhearted,” these reminders must be made carefully. Someone trapped in the woes of grief deserves to question God. They deserve to be angry. And they need to do these things.
Repressing grief causes another world of pain and misery. I speak from experience on this. I needed to question God and I needed to be mad at him. However, I had no outlet to do so. Questioning God is a major sin to most of Christianity. Being angry at God is even worse.
Why didn’t God heal my mother? Why did God allow me to struggle with such crippling grief? I wanted answers to these questions, and I cannot say that I sinned in merely asking them. Job questioned God and he certainly got angry with God. If the healer does not heal, then I do not see why rage against him is considered sin.
Why do Christians Suffer, Too?
I cannot believe that the idea that God shields his own from suffering is still prevalent in Christianity. While it may not always be a prioritized doctrine, it is certainly an underlying one. Christians will be protected from any suffering because God does not allow bad things to happen to good people.
This is pure nonsense. Bad things do happen to good people, and quite frequently. Both in the biblical world and the modern world. We cannot ignore the existence of suffering. We may be able to debate whether God is all-powerful or all-loving, but we cannot deny this third tenet of the problem of suffering.
Suffering exists. It is everywhere. And it always leaves a trail of grief. We cannot say that Christians are immune to suffering and/or grief. Job’s friend Bildad says the following:
“If you are pure and upright;
then he will rouse himself for you
and fulfill your needs.” (Job 8:6, CJB)
But we know what God said about Job’s friends. He rebuked them for how badly they “aided” in Job’s pain and grief. And I truly hope the church does not believe God will turn a blind eye to how similarly it approaches grievers and sufferers.
Conclusion
Grief is a monster. It has absolutely devastated my life and my faith. Those two things will never again return to normal. I would love to conclude by saying “I made it through!” but that alone is not the case.
It is a battle I am still fighting. Every day as of late, I have struggled with grief. I sincerely wish I could believe that God (if I believed in him) could simply snap me back into place, but that is a mere fantasy. What counts the most is that I continue to process it. It comes in waves and thankfully, the hardest part is over.
To those currently struggling with grief, know that there is hope. The pain does not last forever. It may feel like it will, but it will not. Talk to God, get angry with God; process it however you see fit. Know that there are ways to mitigate grief’s toll on a person. The process of grief is as daunting as the monster itself, but it produces healing if you work through it properly.