If your emotions have been all over the place, and you’re scrambling to cope well with change, uncertainty, and disappointment, a helpful solution is to formally acknowledge all these feelings as loss. And since you’re experiencing loss, it’s appropriate to feel grief. And since you’re feeling grief, it’s emotionally mature to move through loss and grief with self-awareness and healing.

“Even if your personal loss seems small and not worth a grieving process, don’t let that stop you from receiving the benefits of healing.”

 Loss is Loss

• plans
• special events, celebrations
• a dream
• a job, income
• a tradition
• rest
• an opportunity
• control
• innocence
• time
• a person/a life
• a previous schedule
• community
• something that belonged to you
• the way things used to be
• the way a relationship used to be
• the way culture you used to be
• the way you expected something to turn out
• the way your body used to function/look
• performance in some area
• perfection and God’s perfect design for life

“By sorrow of the heart, the SPIRIT IS BROKEN.” (Prov. 15:13b)

Healing & Self-Care

First and foremost, you need to be comforted. And there is no comfort like the comfort you can receive from The Comforter and from the people who comfort others because of the way He has comforted them. (2 Cor. 1:4)

Even comforting in times of distance…

Common Stages of Grief

“Even if your grief is unique, you can still glean something from visiting the stages of grief.”

1. Shock & Denial

Understandably, with painful loss you may want to delay facing hard emotions. So, you remain in a state of denial.

As helpful as this stage can be in order to give your mind a little breather and your heart some time to adjust, you need to limit your time in this stage to help stabilize your overall mood state and protect your relationships.

“Whoever has NO RULE OVER HIS OWN SPIRIT is like a city broken down, without walls.” (Prov. 25:28)

2. Anger & Anxiety

Though you may be facing reality better than you were when in denial, you may not yet be ready to sit in hurt and sadness. Anger feels more doable at this point.

During this time, you can allow yourself to “be angry while not sinning” and keep yourself from becoming “an angry man who stirs up strife.” (Ps. 4:4, Prov. 29:22)

As with denial, sometimes being in this angry and/or anxious stage enables you to get out of bed in the morning, but eventually the Lord will whisper to you that it’s time to adjust this emotion so that its negativity won’t become harmful to you and others. Monitoring grief can help you see when your anger is getting the best of you and you need to move to the next stage.

3. Blaming, Bargaining, Guilt, Shame, Obsessive Thinking

Even though you may be out of the stages of denial and anger, sometimes you can get stuck in one place in your head. There is an objective Reviewer to “search you; know your heart and any wicked ways in you; give you sound thinking; and then make the meditation of your heart acceptable.” (Ps. 19:14; Ps.139:23, 24; 2 Tim. 1:7)

A great step to navigating this frustrating stage of grief, is to take the action of putting others first. Check in on what they are going through and serve creatively.

If you can’t figure out how to get out of this phase, tell a loved one or seek counseling, giving someone an opportunity to be one “who sharpens your countenance.” (Prov. 27:17)

4. Depression, Hopelessness & Being Overwhelmed

Later, at some point, you may be ready to sit in the sadness and suffer your heartbreak. This can be a beneficial time in your grieving process to cry, journal, and let someone know you’re in a hard place so they can look for signs to make sure your time of distress doesn’t extend beyond what is healthy and appropriate.

“Hope deferred makes the HEART SICK.” (Prov. 13:12)

5. Acceptance & Answers

Acceptance doesn’t mean you find perfect answers to all of your questions about various loss. Instead, you find healing when you allow Him to restore your soul and turn your heart towards His purposes and good works in the midst of sorrow. (Ps. 23:3a; Prov. 21:1)

Acceptance frees up your mind for problem solving, serving, and obedience, which leads to fulfillment and joy.

“Weeping may endure for a night, BUT JOY COMES in the morning.” (Ps. 30:5)

The Messy Process

The consequences of not pursuing the acceptance stage of grief can include: emotional instability, victim mentality, bitterness, discontentment, physical symptoms, inability to fully grow and develop, relational turmoil, professional stall-out, academic failures, extreme loneliness, and feeling distant from God.

Yet, there is no quick fix. Grieving is often a spiraling process; not a linear one. So, just when you think you’re beyond being so consumed by grief, it’s possible for you to return to a stage of grief you thought you’d already left behind. That’s normal. The more you accept this grieving process as healthy and needed, the sooner you will progress forward and ultimately arrive at acceptance.

The Lord was my support…BROUGHT ME OUT into a broad place. (Ps. 18:19)

Biblical Models of Grief

The Psalmists provided a raw public journal that chronicles the spiraling grief experiences of a Believer. Also, the Psalms give you a language for grieving that draws you closer and closer to the Lord. You may need to speak out your grief on a regular basis using the Psalms as your template.

Jesus displayed submission to the Lord while grieving the suffering He would experience on the cross. He perfectly demonstrated how to feel multiple layers of emotion and remain reverent and worshipful.

Paul surely experienced the cycles of grief, allowing his praises of God to strengthen him to endure some of the worst hardships imaginable. Throughout his New Testament writings, he shows you how to produce the good fruits of grief (godly sorrow) rather than the bad fruits of being trapped in negative emotion (worldly sorrow). (2 Cor. 7:10)

“For I AM the Lord who HEALS you.” (Ex. 15:26)