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:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
God’s Word and Jesus instructed us that he came to help those who have suffered from loss, crisis and trauma in life. Jesus came to heal, to release, to set free all of those who are heavy burdened in life. When we observe Scripture and the subject of grief we soon discover that the Bible dignifies grief as a natural God-given way to respond to loss, trauma, and crisis. Therefore we need to learn the process of grief and the best way to help someone through this process. The fact is everyone of us will experience grief and loss in this life. This process of recovery will also be used by God – all the hurt, all the pain, all the crying, all the grief for good. I believe God will teach us through it all to turn around to help others.
We must come to understand that Grief is God’s design for helping a person to recover from loss. It is a therapeutic response and it is “Good Grief” it is not evil or bad.
Quote: Author Edgar Jackson poignantly describes grief: Grief is a young widow trying to raise her three children, alone. Grief is the man so filled with shocked uncertainty and confusion that he strikes out at the nearest person. Grief is a mother walking daily to a nearby cemetery to stand quietly and alone a few minutes before going about the tasks of the day. She knows that part of her is in the cemetery, just as part of her is in her daily work. Grief is the silent, knife-like terror and sadness that comes a hundred times a day, when you start to speak to someone who is no longer there. Grief is the emptiness that comes when you eat alone after eating with another for many years.
Grief is teaching yourself to go to bed without saying good night to the one who had died. Grief is the helpless wishing that things were different when you know they are not and never will be again. Grief is a whole cluster of adjustments, apprehensions, and uncertainties that strike life in its forward progress and make it difficult to redirect the energies of life. Charles Swindoll, Growing Strong, p. 171.
Contributed to Sermon Central by: James Dunn
Video Illustration: Tear Soup – This video helps us understand the process of grief.
Grief is an emotion which is usually ignored by the church because they do not know what to do with it. It’s even been called the following by a well known TV evangelist “Grief and sorrow are dangerous things. I know that because a few months ago, God started jerking the wraps off them and unveiling their true nature to me in a startling way. He showed me that they’re not the innocent emotions we’ve thought they were. They are actually spirit beings sent by the devil himself to kill, steal, and destroy… You may say, ‘aren’t grief and sorrow just natural emotions?’ Yes, they are. That’s what makes them so dangerous. We’ve seen them as such a natural part of life that we haven’t even questioned them. As believers, we’ve just opened up the church door and let them come right in…Contrary to popular belief, grief and sorrow don’t come to help you. They come to hurt you. They’re deceivers sent for one purpose: to choke the Word of God out of your heart” (Kenneth Copeland – Sorrow Not! Winning over grief and sorrow page 3, 5, 9). Can I say this to this preacher “Good grief!”
Contrary to what this TV preacher says grief is Biblical and God gives it credibility by presenting it in the Bible as a proper therapeutic response to loss, crisis and trauma. It is a God given emotion and the Word verifies it.
T.S. - So let’s take a moment to explore what the Bible says about grief and why it is good.
I. The Bible paints a picture of good grief and its God-given power.
a. Dr. H. Norman Wright lists these observations from the Bible in His Booklet – Helping Others Recover from Losses and Grief pg. 4-13:
i. God grieves
1. Genesis 6:6 – The Father grieved over evil in Noah’s Day.
2. John 11:35-38 – The Son grieves over the death of Lazarus.
3. Eph. 4:30 – The Spirit grieves over believers’ sin.
ii. God responds to our grief
1. Psalm 56:8 – He records our tears.
2. Hebrews 4:15, 16 – Sympathizes with our weakness.
3. Isa. 65:19: Rev. 21:4 - He will eventually end our grief.
iii. Grief measures the meaning of our attachments
1. John 11:36 – Our attachments to friends.
2. Gen. 50:1 - Our attachments to family.
iv. Grief potentially interrupts life’s routines
1. 2 Sam. 12:17 – Leaving mourners with little appetite.
2. 2 Sam. 18:33 – Causing mourners to wish for death.
3. 1 Sam. 4:18-22 – Multiplying mourner’s illness and death.
v. Grief potentially persists over an extended period of time.
1. Gen. 50:10 – For seven days.
2. Numbers 20:29 – For thirty days.
3. Gen. 50:3 – For seventy days.
vi. Grief is potentially expressed in a variety of ways.
1. Matthew 26:37-38 – Before a loss.
2. Mark 8:31-32 – By shock, numbness, or denial
3. Job 10:9 – In anger
4. Isa. 38:1-22 - Through bargaining
5. 2 Samuel 12:16-18 – With depression
6. Phil. 1:12, 21-24; 4:11-13 – With acceptance
vii. Grief is potentially facilitated by various expressions
1. 2 Samuel 1:17-27 – Through songs.
2. Lamentations 1-5 – Through poetry
T.S. – The Word of God is to be our guide book in helping us to understand the process of grief and a person’s recovery from a devastating loss. Jesus revealed to us through his role-model how to help people through the process of hurt, grief, loss, crisis management and trauma. Let’s see what he taught us.
II. Jesus approach to helping people through grief, loss, crisis and trauma.
a. The following information is from Dr. H. Norman Wright’s book Crisis and Trauma Counseling Chapter 1 pages 17-27.
i. Jesus understood that techniques in the counseling of others was based and rooted in the premise that he had relationships with the people he ministered too.
1. This was his foundation for ministry – He created relationships with people on a personal basis. We also must seek to develop relationships with others if we ever tend to help them through the grieving process of a crisis or trauma.
2. The key is does the person you are trying to help and support know that you genuinely care for them.
3. Do you show and have you shown people love, empathy, caring, concern, acceptance, and understanding?
a. I have had some people come to me and say “I tried to help these people but they rejected my help!”
b. I have discovered that this is usually because there was no previous relationship with that person.
c. God has created each us to be involved in others lives. This means the more relationships I develop today the more able I am to help someone in the future.
d. God wants his church to relate to one another – are you willing to do this? Or will you continue to live in your little space and bubble and neglect the work of relationships?
ii. Jesus revealed that his approach to helping and giving counsel was always a process.
1. It was not just a one time fix and off he went but he spent time with people and helped them through the grieving process.
2. Jesus reveals to us that the Wonderful Counselor work’s with people in an in depth way through life’s crisis and traumas.
iii. Jesus was a compassionate counselor because he genuinely cared for the people who were hurting in need and he wanted to fix it for them.
1. In a sense he felt their pain, their hurt and their grief.
a. Jesus has empathy for others and we need to also.
2. Mark 8:2: 2“I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat.
3. Mark 6:34: 34When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
iv. Jesus accepted people right where they were at.
1. John 4:1-26 – The woman at well is a great example because he could have condemned her but he did not instead he reached out to her right at her point of need.
2. John 8:1-11 – We see him do the same with the woman caught in adultery.
3. Luke 19:1-10 – We see him accept a dishonest tax collector named Zacchaeus.
v. Jesus gave people worth and value.
1. I still remember when God opened my eyes to this truth in Chicago. He actually sent me to a Mall by the church were I was pastor and told me to look at the 100’s of people as they walked by He then etched into my heart and my head, “Everyone of these people matter to me!”
2. Jesus was criticized by the religious leaders because he attributed value and worth to every individual he met.
vi. Jesus met people’s needs
1. John 3:1-21 - Even a religious leader named Nicodemus in the middle of the night.
a. Jesus helped the religious, the rich, the poor, the outsider and the insider.
vii. Jesus used the right words
1. Mark 3:5 - 5He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.
2. He knew what to say, when to say it and how to say it.
viii. Jesus emphasized right behavior so that the process would bring recovery.
1. John 8:10-12 - 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11“No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” 12When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
2. Luke 6:47, 48 - 47I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. 48He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. 49But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”
ix. Jesus encouraged people to accept responsibility for their healing.
1. John 5:6 “Do you want to get well? “ Jesus’ question to the man at the pool of Bethesda.
2. Mark 10:51 “What do you want me to do or you?” Jesus asked the Blind man.
a. The point here is people must understand that they have to make a choice to either remain the same or to be willing to change and grow through the experience.
b. Wright states, “A goal of crisis counseling, as you will see, is to help the person in need accept and take responsibility” (21).
x. Jesus encouraged people and gave them hope.
1. Matt. 11:28-30 - 28“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
xi. Jesus emphasized peace of mind and let them know where to find it.
1. John 14:27 - 27Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
2. When we seek the counsel of the Lord and tap him as our resource then we will encounter peace.
xii. Jesus helped to reshape, or restructure people’s thinking
1. Luke 5:22-25; 12:22-27 – Jesus helped people reshape their focus from the unimportant to the important things in life.
2. Matthew 6:19-21- Jesus reminded and taught us and others that earthly treasurers would not bring about a joy filled life only when we focus on Heavenly treasures would this occur.
xiii. Jesus was a teacher throughout the process
1. Luke 14:1-6 and Luke 6:39-42 all reveal the importance of teaching others through difficult life situations.
2. A large part of counseling through grief is being able to use some of those teachable moments with the one in need.
a. Jesus taught with direct statements and with questions and he knew how to teach.
xiv. Jesus spoke with authority
1. Matthew 7:28, 29 – Jesus spoke with the authority of God’s Word and he has not bashful about it.
a. 28When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
2. Jesus knew were His authority came from and we need to know as well.
xv. Jesus confronted and corrected situations
1. Matthew 8:26 - 26He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.
2. Matthew 18:15 -17 -15“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
3. John 8:3-9 - 3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
4. There are times when you may have to confront the individual you are working with about their problem or their behavior toward the problem.
a. This so that the healing can progress.
b. Jesus was effective and we can be effective in helping others if we learn to live a life of faith, and to see things through the eyes of the Lord.
i. Jesus was obedient God – John 12:49: John 17:4
ii. Jesus was faithful to God and his call – Mark 5:36
iii. Jesus was a pray warrior – Luke 5:15, 16; Luke 6:12, 13
iv. Jesus was personally involved with God and with others
v. Jesus used the power of the Holy Spirit – Luke 3:21, 22
Conclusion:
Patsy Clairmont in her book “Under His Wings” tells a moving story of the reality of dealing with grief. “We buried my friend’s 26 year old son last week. An accidental gunshot took Jeff’s life. We have more questions than answers. We are offended at people who have all the answers and no experience with devastating loss.
I watched the heart-wrenching scenes as the family tried to come to grips with the tragedy, I can still hear the travailing of the mother’s anguished heart. I can still see the wrenching of the father’s grief torn hands. I can still smell the hospital and funeral home. Memories march before my mind like soldiers, causing me to relive the agony. If it is this difficult for me, Jeff’s god-mother, how much more magnified it must be for his birth mother! I can’t imagine. As I watched Jeff’s mom, Carol, the week after his death, I observed a miracle. I saw her move from despair to hope. From franticness to peace. From uncertainty to assurance. From needing comfort to extending it. I witnessed a mom face her worst nightmare and refuse to run away. Instead, she ran to Him. When grief knocked the breath out of Carol, she went to the Breath Giver. I watched as the Lord placed His mantle of grace around her and then supported her with His mercy. The grief process has just begun for Jeff’s loved ones. The Lord will not remove His presence from the Porter family. But there may be moments when He will remove their awareness of His presence. That will allow them to feel the impact of their loss. For He knows it would be our tendency to hide even behind His grace to protect our fragile hearts from the harshness winds of reality. He offers us refuge, but He also promises us wholeness. Wholeness means we are fully present with ourselves and with Him. Therefore, we have to own our pain. If we do not, part of who we are we must either shut down, avoid or deny. That would leave us estranged from ourselves and divided in our identity. Also, we would never heal in a way that would allow us to minister to others.” [Patsy Clairmont. Under His Wings. (Colorado Springs: Focus On the Family, 1994) p. 137] Contributed to Sermon Central by: John Hamby
Dr. Wright shares this story which I believe is appropriate for us to think about this morning as we close:
In a small European village was a town square that held a special statue. This statue of Jesus was the pride and joy of this small town, But World War II arrived, and soon the bombs began falling on the town. One day the statue was hit and blown to pieces. The residents collected all the shattered pieces and slowly did what they could to re-create it. When they finished their reconstruction, the only pieces missing were the hands of Jesus, so they placed a plaque at the base of the statue with the words, “Now we are the only hands that Jesus has” (27).
