Good Grief Pt. 1 Series

Good Grief - part 1

On the lighter side of life:

Peanuts Comic Strip - with Charlie Brown sayin "Good Grief."

Thesis: The Body of Christ needs to learn how to administer “Good Grief” in loss, in crisis and in trauma situations of life.

Introduction:

Dr. H Norman Wright tells this story:

My wife and I had just arrived home from vacation, and the phone rang. It was our house painter. He said, “I remembered that your son died. My daughter just lost two of her little boys. Can you help her?” We agreed, so my wife and I made an appointment. This young, mother came in and, as best as she could, told us the story. Her husband had been depressed and even suicidal for some time. He was under the care of both a psychiatrist and a psychologist. He had been treated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). With medications, but it was discovered later that he was actually bipolar. He had become increasingly depressed a few days earlier. He said that he wanted to take the boys down to the beach and asked his wife to go with him. She said she preferred to stay home with their five-month-old baby. He took his five-and six-year-old sons to the beach, took out a handgun, killed them and attempted to kill himself, which he bungled. Hours later the police came to her home; but it was the media person who broke the news to her holding a microphone in her face, asking “How does it feel to know that your husband killed your children?” How would you feel, and what would you do or say? This was possibly one of the most difficult and painful cases for us to handle. Often after a session, my wife and I would both cry for that woman’s pain and some of our own, which had been activated once again. We spent over two years working with her. The entire community came to her support. The 31 mothers of the preschool where her sons attended provided dinner each night for her and her son for the next year. This was an example of what it means to minister in the name of Jesus (Crisis and Trauma Counseling, pages 14, 15).

In this world we hear far too often the stories of loss, crisis and trauma. It makes the headline news every night. I was in the gym the other day doing my physical therapy on my knee and the news was on and it was one awe full story after another. My Physical Therapist turned to me and said, “The news is so depressing anymore, and I just don’t like listening to it anymore!” I agreed with her observation about life today. The news is filled with many grievous and depressing stories. The news likes to spread the “Ugly side of life” because “Bad news” sells.

I hear on a weekly basis about daily losses in people’s lives from not just the news but from newspapers, TV, radio, magazines, and word of mouth. It is everywhere and it communicates to us that everyone will have to face some type of crisis and or loss in their lives. It could be a divorce, a spouse who is unfaithful, a crime, an accident, a death, a health issue, a family crisis, a financial crisis, an addiction, a job loss and the list could go on. We all will face crisis and our friends and families will also. Dr. Wright states it this way, “There is no limit to the number of losses and crises that occur in life-some of them are inexplicable traumas that affect an entire family” (15).

My question is this “Will you the church, the body of Christ, the hands of Jesus be prepared to help others through the process of grief?” So over the next 4 weeks I plan on doing something different with my messages. My goal is to teach each person here and those listening today how you can help someone through a crisis, a loss, or a trauma in life. My goal is to help you to become a person who is used by the Lord to help another person through the process of grief and loss. My mind reflects on two passages of Scripture today – Let’s read them!

Scripture:

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

Luke 4:18, 19

16He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: