Good Grief?

“Getting hit by a stun gun. There is a shock. There is pain you think won’t end. There are involuntary reactions. There is anger at getting hit with it. There is a numbness that takes over, you can move (after a bit of time passes) but the feeling in your body & mind is disconnected from the motions. Even after the effects have passed, things still don’t feel the same and you aren’t quite right for a while. And then you wonder why it happened.”

More than Death

We’ve buried multiple students, friends, and our mothers, my dad and stepmom, and recently Maxine’s stepmom.

It’s important to understand that, although I have been talking about grief in terms of coping with death, grief is much broader than that.

If we define grief as a natural human reaction to loss, then it is normal to grieve quite often. We all experience loss, small and big, and must deal with the resulting emotions.

I’ve often surprised people who come to counsel with me by suggesting they may be grieving. Their first response is, “Nobody died.” But grieving is not always about physical death.

We grieve when:

* Divorce steals our dreams of a happy marriage. In fact, divorce really is about death, the death of a dream. Many people would say that it is actually worse than death because the other person is still around, a reminder of an indescribable loss.

* The loss of a job can cause grief reactions. Being fired, laid off, or downsized can cause grief to raise its ugly head.

* Moving can cause grief, particularly if one feels uprooted from their support system.

* The loss of a pet can be devastating, even to adults.

* Dealing with middle age - a stressful time when many are trying to take care of their parents and their adult children who end up back in the house.

* The disintegration of an important friendship can cause grief.

* Watching your children make choices that you know will hurt them can cause grief.

Being an eyewitness to a tragic event can cause overwhelming sorrow. Each generation has their own grief events:

The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963

The explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986

The 9-11 attacks in 2001

Or, as Jeremiah experienced when he looked out over the ruins of his beloved Jerusalem.

Turn with me to Lamentation (p. 1273).

Prayer.

A Time to Lament

That brings us to the Book of Lamentations. Lamentations has been called the saddest book in the Bible. It is actually a series of five poetic dirges or laments.

For forty years, and through a succession of five different kings, Jeremiah’s message had been the same - repent and turn back to God, or Jerusalem will be attacked and destroyed. (See Jeremiah 21) For forty years, he had been ignored, harassed, and humiliated.

In about 588 BC, Jeremiah found out that King Zedekiah had decided to stop paying tribute to Babylon. He immediately went to the king and not only begged him to continue to honor the treaty but he went a step further and suggested that Zedekiah surrender to Nebuchadnezzar (see Jer 38:17-18).