Resilient and Redeemed: Lessons About Faith, Depression & SuicidalityChikamu

Give Yourself Permission to Grieve

Grief takes a lot of different forms, and it’s not always because of death. We can grieve the loss of a job, the loss of a friendship, the loss of a dream, or even the loss of a life once hoped for. In these moments, depression and suicidality lie to us. They tell us that our emotions are out of whack and that we shouldn’t be responding with as much depth as we are feeling.

Too often, we are taught that emotions are dangerous and something to be kept under control.We might be given space to grieve over the death of a loved one, but only barely. Yet, there are moments when the only right response might be to feel all the feelings that are overwhelming us. Denying these emotions means we are making a choice to be dishonest with ourselves, which sets us up for later problems. When circumstances come at us with the fury of a thousand summer suns, we have to choose to look them straight in the face and address them. When we do this, we create a barrier of sorts against the onslaught of depression and suicidality.

It’s not uncommon for depression or suicidality to take grief as a jumping-off point, to run with the built-up emotions of a troubling time and bring us to unhealthy places. Thankfully, the Bible isn’t silent on what to do in grief. There are several times when we see the way that grief impinges on someone’s life, but perhaps the most poignant is Job. As you might already know, Job lost all his business assets and his children in the course of a few hours. Talk about grief!

But Job wasn’t grieving alone. Job’s three friends traveled to be with him. There’s powerful commentary here for those of us with mental health conditions. We usually suffer our mental health conditions in silence, which means nobody will know what we’re going through unless we tell them. It seems unfair, but it’s on us to be honest with our friends so they can support us in times of travail. The next thing that’s striking about these verses: Job was unrecognizable physically. The narrative tells us that he had boils from head to toe and scratched at them with a shard of pottery. His friends didn’t even know where to find Job until they got closer, but they didn’t stop looking. The last and perhaps most important thing: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar joined in Job’s grief. For a full week, they sat on the ground in the ashes with him, said nothing, and wept with him. Things got dicey once these friends started opening their mouths because they began to question whether Job brought his problems upon himself, but for that first week, they remained the best possible friends.

What do you think about the idea that God wants us to be in community while grieving, and what might that look like in your life?