An old commercial comes to my mind when I read that title. The company advertises that it got the confidence of its customers the old fashioned way—they earned it.
A lot of people who are stuck in cycles of grief, anger, or addiction justify their failure to recover with the same kind of statement. Whether they say it aloud or not, they declare that they deserve to feel this way because of what happened to them. They earned the right to feel it. And to hang onto it.
What about that?
You do have justification for your feelings. After all, they are your feelings, and I am not about to tell you they are wrong. Too many people have probably done that already. They say things like, “Oh, you shouldn’t feel like that. They didn’t mean it.” Sometimes you might even get, “How dare you feel that way—you ungrateful wretch!” Ouch!
It’s wrong for someone else to deny your right to your own feelings. It doesn’t help you at all.
It doesn’t help you to hang onto them under false premises, either.
Why does someone hang onto painful emotions like grief? Unless there is some underlying mental incapacity, I think they simply get stuck in the cycle. Nothing they have tried really helps, not in the long-term. They can end up believing that they can never be healed.
Is that true? No. However, we have to go back to the truth that only Jesus can heal. Not psychology, not medication, not other religious activity. Healing comes from the Healer.
Several years ago, I was attending a seminar held by Family Foundations, International. It was about emotional healing and the emphasis was on being set free from shame. I remember feeling deep, unidentified pain. I had no idea how to get rid of it. I just knew it had been there for as long as I could remember.
The small group leaders were ministering to me when I asked Jesus just what my problem was. I saw, in my mind’s eye, the word “grief” repeated over and over again. I told the leader. He reached out to pull me into his chest and then held me. That compassion broke my emotional dam and I wept on his shoulder with deep, gut-wrenching sobs. It was the first time I’d felt safe doing that. And for the first time the grief was realized and accessed.
For someone else, it would have been “business as usual”. For me, it was a turning point.
Someone finally cared, and cared deeply.
And he took me to Jesus, the Healer, so He could do the necessary work.
This is part 3 of a series on grief
Part 1|Are You Living With Grief?
Part 2|Time Heals Grief?
all illustrations courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net