Processing Loss

I have experienced more than my share of death this year. This Saturday will be my fourth memorial service for someone I knew. Although I have made peace with God in such a way that I am not really afraid of death any more, nor am I surprised by it--yet, I find myself a little worn down by it.

Well-meaning Christians will counsel that "We know they are in a better place" and "Faith sees beyond our current circumstances" and "Death has lost its sting." Yes, I agree with all those statements. Yes, I know in my heart that God has conquered death and Hades through the work of Christ. Yes, I know that death is not the end of life, merely a passage to the next.

Yet, I am human. And loss is a natural phenomenon that we experience as we contemplate the end of a relationship here. As Elizabeth Kübler-Ross described in her famous work, On Death and Dying, we go through predictable stages as we face loss: denial, anger, bargaining, sadness/depression, and acceptance.

I do not believe it is wrong to grieve and mourn those who have gone before us. In order to come to acceptance, we need to go through the natural process in order to learn and to grow.

"We grieve, but not like the rest of men who have no hope."

What does that mean? We grieve, which is only natural, like breathing--yet there is a sense of hope that keeps our grief from becoming debilitating. For the Christian, our souls are sustained by the living Spirit of God, who is the "parakletos," that is, "the one who comes alongside" to encourage and strengthen.

So, I will not feel shame for being human and grieving for the many losses I've experienced this year. But, I will go to God and ask for His comforting Presence to encourage and strengthen me as I place my hope in Him.

In one of my favorite movies, Shadowlands, Joy Gresham tells C. S. Lewis that he must stop avoiding loving, because it is really avoiding the inevitable losing that it entails. "The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal," she says to him before she dies.

And at the end of the movie, he has learned to embrace joy and pain. The closing voice-over says it all:

"Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers now; only the life I've lived. The boy chose safety; the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then; that's the deal."