Stress from Loss: Grieving as a Christian

Stress in the life of a Christian: Previously on West Wing we have discussed
• Stress related to failure
• Stress related to conflict in relationships
• Stress related to the work place

Today I want to read part of the introductory Biblical passage and ask you to identify for the source of stress we will discuss today: Read Job 1:13-15, 18-21



Stress increases when we are grieving a loss. Before we begin our conversation, I would like to use what the educators among us would call a pre-test.

Post-Test given to class:

1. When we talk about grief, we most often think about our response to the death of some one close to us. However, we often find ourselves grieving other losses that have nothing to do with death. Can you identify some examples other losses that might produce grief in the life of an individual?


2. Prolonged or overly emotional grieving demonstrates a lack of faith. (True or False)


3. Each person’s experience of grief is completely unique. (True or False)


Responses to Question 1:
• loss of relationship by separation … spouse to Iraq, divorce, insurmountable issues that divide from someone you love
• Loss of job
• Loss of health
• Loss of financial security
• Loss of personal safety
• Loss of dream
• Loss of reputation or status or approval

Responses to Question 2: The curriculum is emphatic that it is not a sign of spiritual immaturity for a Christian to experience wrenching grief. Indeed, our response from one moment to the next in the grief process may vary. A moment ago we heard Job’s initial response to his terrible loss. In that response he is somewhat calm and dispassionate. However, as time passes his grief takes many different shapes. Listen to Job in Job 3:1-4, 11-12, 16, , 25-26. Here we hear a man whose grief is intense, yet his faith remains constant.

However, Carla points out that failure to move beyond grief may signify a crisis in faith. We will touch on this in a minute.

Responses to Question 3: True and False. Each person’s grief patterns are unique. And indeed, as we watch another person go through the grief process, we really have no measure of how profound and deep it is. The Bible offers several pictures of persons experiencing grief and in each case they have different characteristics. We watch David lament as his friend Jonathan is killed, we watch the prophets mourn as Israel wanders further from God and consequences follow. We watch Jesus mourn when his cousin and his friend John the Baptist was beheaded. [Read Matthew 14: 9 – 13] Note that the outward manifestation of Jesus’ grief was that he chose to go apart by himself.

On the other hand, although each person’s grief is individual, there are some common patterns in the grief journey that are worth noting:

The curriculum describes this pattern: Shock, Denial, Sadness, Anger, Acceptance. In our two vignettes in the life of Job, his first response was in the period of shock. By Job 3 he was somewhere in anger stage. Another well-respected pattern is the one researched by the physician Elizabeth Kubbler-Ross who identified the following stages in the grief that comes when one learns that one has a terminal illness: Denial, Bargaining, Anger, Depression, Acceptance. What both patterns suggest to us is that grief is a journey though which we must move … and that to resume a life of joy and meaning, we must eventually complete the journey. Knowing the patterns that will characterize our grief may help us monitor ourselves as we experience grief and may also help us as we live with and reach out to friends and family who are immersed in grief.

Our authors emphatically assert that grief is a normal part of the lives of Christians and not a sign of weakness, and they emphatically assert that there is no magic time after which all Christian should have completed their grief journey. However, they suggest that there are some false beliefs that can lead us to get stuck in our grief journey in a place of despair or bitterness. These false beliefs can rob us of some or all of the joy of the Christian life.


Question for Discussion: Accepting for a moment that grief is a journey that each of us must travel to the end, what are some false beliefs that can hold us in bad places?

• I can never forgiven for my part in the loss of X (where X may a passenger in the car I was driving when the wreck occurred, X may be a spouse I had a fight with before he was deployed to Iraq, a job that was lost due to my inattention, a championship game that was lost due to my mistakes, …) . If we get stuck at this place in our grief journey, we forget that God is first and foremost a God of forgiveness. He invites us to bring our pasts to him for healing. He can and will forgive.
• Without X, there is no possibility of joy or happiness or fulfillment in my life. (Remember X may not be a person … lost job, lost dream, …) This false belief assumes we are dependent on our selves or the lost person or thing for joy and happiness. For a Christian, God is the source of true joy.
• Because I lost X, my life has no meaning. Again, this false belief forgets that with or without X, God is the source of meaning in our lives. He has loved us, declared us his children, and we need no other meaning or mission in this life.
• If God really loved me, X would not have been lost. In this false belief we presume there to know more than God and to know more about the direction of God’s will than God does.


Life Change Lessons:
1. Accept your grief: This is a necessary first step, accepting the fact that a loss has occurred and that you are entering a new season of your life, a season of grief. It does not help to declare that grief is not necessary because we are victorious Christians. It is better to admit to God and to ourselves that the loss hurts … a lot.
2. Limit your Grief: To grieve freely and openly is not to give in to an indefinite and debilitating despair. If you find yourself stuck in one of the stages of grief, perhaps being held captive by the mistaken belief that your life has no meaning, you may need help in moving on. Talk to a wise friend about your lack of progress, or seek a Christian counselor.
3. Redeem your grief: Remember that your life can grow larger through suffering. Read I Samuel 9 for an example of how David redeemed his grief from the loss of his beloved friend Jonathan by caring for Jonathan’s crippled son and making him an honored guest at the table of the king.


Pre-Test:


1. When we talk about grief, we most often think about our response to the death of some one close to us. However, we often find ourselves grieving other losses that have nothing to do with death. Can you identify some examples other losses that might produce grief in the life of an individual?




2. Prolonged or overly emotional grieving demonstrates a lack of faith.




3. Each person’s experience of grief is completely unique.