Читать книгу Grieving the Loss of a Loved One - Lorene Hanley Duquin - Страница 7

1. The Journey Through Grief

Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.

— C. S. Lewis

Grief is the painful journey that we embark upon when someone we love dies. It is not unlike the recovery period after a serious surgery, when our bodies need time to heal and our muscles need time to regenerate.

When we lose a loved one, a significant part of our lives is torn away. In trying to describe the severity of the loss, Madeleine L’Engle wrote: “The death of a beloved is an amputation.” But unlike a physical amputation, where we lose a limb, the death of a loved one is an emotional amputation, where we lose a person that we loved deeply.

Grief is the process by which we allow ourselves to come to grips with our loss. It is a journey that will be different for each of us, depending on our personalities and our relationship with the person who died.

Some of us will travel through the classic stages of grief: shock, denial, anger, sadness, and gradual acceptance. Others will jump back and forth from one stage to another. Some of us may skip some of the stages entirely. There is no right or wrong way to move through grief.

Grief is not an illness or an abnormality. It is a natural process. We grieve deeply because we loved deeply.

Grief is also a holy process. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us: “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Mt 5:4). Jesus is telling us that we are blessed, not because the loss of a loved one was a blessing, but because we will be comforted in our loss. Jesus doesn’t tell us how we will be comforted. He only promises that he will help us through this difficult time. Is our faith strong enough to believe in that promise?

Prayer: Lord, be my comfort and my strength as I journey through grief. You know the depths of pain in my heart. You know how lost and weak I feel. Guide me through each stage of this journey. Strengthen my faith and my trust in you. Never let me be separated from you. Amen.

A good reflection for beginning our journey through grief comes from the prophet Isaiah, who assures us that God will be with us, no matter what we encounter on our journey:

When you pass through waters, I will be with you;

through rivers, you shall not be swept away.

When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned,

nor will flames consume you.

For I, the Lord, am your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your savior. (Is 43:2-3)