Seasons Of Grieving: When Grief Turns To Joy Series

Grief and joy, two intense extremes. What is grief?

“Author Edgar Jackson poignantly describes grief: 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.

What about joy?

As a third-century man was anticipating death, he penned these last words to a friend: "It's a bad world, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret. They have found a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people are the Christians--and I am one of them." -Today In The Word, June, 1988, p. 18.

We’re going back in time to a moment in history that is very important. It’s the moment when Jesus had gathered with his disciples, and they’re in a hidden place, and he’s explaining to them the things that are going to happen next.

Jesus is in fact giving them bad news. And this bad news is affecting them.

Jesus says in John 16:1-3, “All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me.”

The reason Jesus is giving them this information ahead of time is to prepare them for it. When they are persecuted, they can remember, wait, Jesus told us this would happen. And then they won’t fall away. They’ll stand firm.

Jesus even says in verse 4, “I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them.”

Years from now, when Peter and the other disciples are arrested and harassed and beaten by the Jewish authorities, they will think back to that conversation with Jesus and say, that’s right, the Lord told us this would happen.

They will then know, it’s normal to feel this way, it’s understandable that this is happening. I can handle this. It’s going to be ok. Often we panic when bad things happen, we assume things are out of control. But God's word reminds us, it's to be expected. We can react in foreknowledge, knowing it is well.

Today we’re talking about the topic of grief and joy. Grief and joy are emotions that surround transitions. Anytime a change is happening, we experience grief.

It doesn’t have to be a negative change either, it can be a positive change. It can be a job promotion. It can be a new baby. It can be a victory. But even with positive changes we can experience grief surrounding the changes in our lives.

I know for myself, as I prepare to move, I find myself feeling depressed at times, feeling uncertain, feeling troubled, and this weekend, my wife and I were doing fun things outdoors, going for bike rides, walks, bon fires, and I found myself pre-occupied with uncomfortable feelings. I couldn’t fully enjoy what we were doing. I felt myself grieved.

How do you deal with grief? I know many of us used to drink or use drugs, or have a smoke, or party, but we can’t do that anymore. We’re different now. So how do we deal with grief?

We have to face it head on. And that will take courage.

“In a sermon, Bill Hybels shared this story: A friend of mine has a brain-damaged daughter. Sometimes the sadness she feels over her daughter's condition overwhelms her, as it did recently. She wrote me this letter and gave me permission to quote from it:

". . . I can hardly bear it sometimes. My most recent wave of grief came just last year before her sixteenth birthday. As the day approached, I found myself brooding over all the things that she would never be able to do. What did I do? What I've learned to do again and again: I did what I believe is the only thing to do to conquer grief, and that is to embrace it. . . I cried and cried and cried, and faced the truth of my grief head on."

People who face their feelings and express them freely begin the journey toward hope.” -article from Preaching Today.