Sitting in Grief: A Devotional Journey Towards Standing AgainSample

Day 5 - Moving On

Chances are you're reading this and might be a bit angry at the title. "Move on?! Are you serious?!?"

No, friend. I'm not saying you should be ready to move on after five days. That's unreasonable. This is just a five-day reading plan, and, like our earthly lives, it has to end sometime. Your grief is going to last longer than it takes for you to get through any reading plan or book about grief. There's no cure. There's no magical thing I or anybody else can say that will take away the pain you feel.

Jesus summarized all of the commandments into two: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. We often make Christianity a lot more difficult than it has to be by insisting on rigid theological convictions, but truthfully, it's pretty simple. Note that I didn't say easy!

The process of grieving is a lot like what happens on an airplane when there's a lack of oxygen in the cabin, and the masks come down. You need to take care of yourself, first, and put on your mask before you can assist others. Your self-care is incredibly important right now, but it's not everything. Martin Luther was a fan of using the phrase incurvatus in se, which is Latin for "turned/curved inward on oneself." In grief, it is easy to become so focused on your own pain and your own suffering that you forget why you're called to be on Earth in the first place. Now that you've put the oxygen mask on yourself, turning your attention to others will not only be life-changing to others, but for you, as well.

If the person you lost had a particular passion area, it could be helpful to find ways to help others by using that passion. For instance, my father was the world's leading arachnologist (the study of spiders), and after his death I started a scholarship/grant fund in his name to help fund the research of small spiders. Obviously, nobody else's father was the world's leading arachnologist (which you might be glad of if you're scared of spiders!), but you get my point. Helping to create a legacy for your loved one can be helpful in the grieving process.

Never underestimate the simple act of serving at a food kitchen or a food bank. If food isn't your thing, there's plenty of ways to serve others, and God will help direct you! There are so many people who need help in this world, and God has created YOU to make a difference.

You'll find that God not only gave us these commandments, but he also wired our brains to respond positively. The fact is, helping others makes us feel better ourselves. This is God's work at its finest! 

The act of loving and caring for others can help us stop sitting in grief and gradually move us towards standing again.

Your world isn't going to look like it did when the person you loved was still in it, but hear this: Jesus is already doing a new thing in your life, and that newness will be revealed to you, in time. Soon, there will be a new rhythm and a new way of being that God will be drawing you towards.

If you've found this reading plan helpful, please reach out and let me know.