There is No Shame in Taking Time to Grieve

I am no stranger to loss and grief. My parents, grandparents, and most of my extended family were dead by the time I was 21 years old. I've been a homeless single mom with no money, no friends, and no hope. I've been beaten and abused more times than I can count. I've had no food and eaten Ramen noodles 5 times a week, just to feed my kids. I've chased a relationship that I never should've been in, just hoping someone would want me. I've huddled on the bathroom floor, certain no one saw me, and no one cared, contemplating suicide. It wasn’t until many years later that I allowed myself to slow down and actually grieve these things.

Step 4 to Healing: Allow Yourself to Grieve

Grieving is a natural process, and an important one at that. Grieving is our way of acknowledging painful events and moving past them. When we ignore the pain that we have experienced, it doesn’t go away. Instead, it will only fester and affect us more. When we don’t allow ourselves to experience and go through the waves of grief, we are prolonging our own healing process. How can we move past something if we never allow ourselves to grieve it? In fact, in my experience, my failure to rush the process and not properly grieve, often breeds bad decisions!

Learn to sit with the pain. Don’t rush through the recovery process too quickly (or attempt to), or you’ll likely find yourself back at square one. It takes time to heal, and a half-healed wound will always re-open. It is easy to find yourself rushing through the recovery process, focused on the next “task” to be completed, especially because healing is uncomfortable. Discomfort often breeds revelation, so sit in the discomfort of the pain for a little while. Take the time necessary to evaluate the pain, understand what happened, and how the pain could be avoided in the future, or what can be learned as a result of it. It’s especially important to recognize that all pain can be given purpose. Maybe this pain was necessary for a life lesson for your next season, or maybe this pain was necessary so that in the future, you can help someone going through a similar experience.

The loss of a relationship, death, or even the death of a dream you once had require a grieving season. Ecclesiastes 3 teaches us that there is a time for everything under the sun. This may be a time of grieving for you. Take the time to mourn the loss of what once was. You don’t have to pretend it didn’t happen or that it was “nothing.” It was something, and it hurt. The appropriate time of grieving will allow you the tools necessary to move into your time of dancing. The key to grief, though, is making sure you are always moving forward. It is healthy to grieve, but it is unhealthy to stay stuck in a state of grieving. Allow yourself to feel everything you are feeling, but do not allow yourself to wallow in self-pity or other negative emotions. A season of grief is meant to be just that—a season, a passing period of time. Once you allow yourself to appropriately grieve, you will find yourself moving into a lighter, more joy-filled season.

Points to Ponder

• Describe a time in your life when you experienced grief. What happened? How did you overcome it?