The Emotions of Grief

Romans 8:9, “However you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you…”

John 16:22, “Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.”

My brother-in-law has been gone 6 weeks now and my sister and parents very much remain in their grieving, and rightfully so as 30 years is hardly erased in 6 weeks. But I want to use the example to combine to two passages above and show how the cycle and emotions of grief affect us all in our normal life, even removed from the tragedy of the death of a loved one.

The cycle or stages or emotions of grief are denial, anger, depression, negotiation, and acceptance. They occur not necessarily in that order, and there is no set length of time that a person can exists in any stage. Interestingly enough, grief can be caused by any unpleasantry of life. Clearly the loss of life causes loved ones grief, but abuse and bulling cause it too. Divorce causes it. Financial or social trauma can cause it. The loss of a job can cause it. And so if we can begin to see that grief and its emotions can appear in our lives for any manner of reason we can then begin to self-diagnosis it, and begin to move away from the flesh, and return to the Spirit which is the state of peace and joy. Additionally if we find ourselves in a position to positively influence someone grieving, then we can perhaps jump in it with them, and help them to see where they are.

At the end of the day, the emotions of grief… the denial, the anger, the depression, the negotiating with God are all a lie even though all of humanity responds similarly. Sure there are physiological causes of depression like low serotonin, and some (like a murder victims family) find justification for their anger, but from a spiritual perspective these emotions are lies. They represent our spiritual battle against our flesh, and they also represent an area, or areas, where we are failing to trust God. This is in no way to say that medications designed to treat the extremes in these feelings are sinful, or prevent relationship to God or trust in His Spirit. On the contrary I say this to only address the spiritual side of the equation and not the physical side.

For me, my childhood abuse led to 25 years of being caught in the anger cycle of grief. Other experiences have led to years of denial, or depression, of fruitless attempts to negotiate a different future with God. The emotions of grief kept me from finding the place of forgiveness. They built the walls that separated me from parts of humanity. They also fueled certain needs to control. But the truth is (and always is) acceptance.

For my brother in law, death at 50 is a tragedy in human terms, but reality is we will “see” him again, just like we will see Christ. The truth is not the anger or depression or denial. The truth is God knows better than we do; and though His timing does not look perfect, I am certain that it is. Even for all the tragedy that can launch us into the spinning cycle of grief God has a plan for good. This we must have faith for, this we must believe… acceptance is the only truth and everything else moves us away from who we are in Christ.

T. Austin-Sparks said this, “Perhaps the major problem of most of the Lord’s people is to keep that line of division between what we are in ourselves and what Christ is in us. The great line of attack on the part of the enemy is to bring what we are ourselves continually up into view and occupy us with that, and by so doing obscure Christ. The great object of the Holy Spirit in His opposing of Satan is to bring Christ into view and to occupy us with Him to the obscuring of ourselves. That is where the great difficulty arises for most of the Lord’s people. There is always this beat back, this drive back to get us occupied with ourselves, as to what we are, to keep us from being occupied with Christ and what He is; in some way to get that gap, that gulf, that separation filled up, and the line of demarcation obliterated, so that there is confusion.”

If we stay in grief, focused inward at our own loss or tragedy, then we can't look outward to Christ. We must come to acceptance so that we can “bring Christ into view” as so that we are able to love instead of hate, have joy instead of depression, and peace instead of denial or a need to negotiate with God. God is not negotiated with. He is obeyed, He is loved, and He freely returns love, grace, and mercy without negotiation.

Examine your life today and see where the emotions of grief continue to run it. Choose acceptance so that your heart can rejoice.