From Pain 2 Purpose: Begin to Process Loss and Forge AheadНамуна

Unresolved Grief

Experiencing losses is a part of life. They should be expected, yet it is not easy to anticipate or cope with them. While such losses are inevitable in a fallen world, we seem unprepared to deal with them adequately. It seems we must find ways of coping with them even as we face them.

You or someone you know may have recently experienced a loss—the loss of health, the loss of a friend or family member through death, the loss of a job, loss of a business, the loss of financial stability, a loss due to a divorce, or the loss of a home through a natural disaster. In each case, that loss, whether small or great, causes grief and pain.

No one in their right mind wants to experience grief, but in this life, it is unavoidable. So, what do we do with the inevitable pain? For some, the tendency may be to overmedicate the hurt, rush through it, or try to ignore it by burying it deep inside. While the unaddressed pain may remain under the surface for a while, it will eventually come out and bring even greater pain in the future. If we do not grieve our losses in healthy and productive ways, we experience what is called “unresolved grief” or, sometimes, “complicated grief.” This kind of grief eats at our emotional and relational lives and can leave us perpetually empty and alone to the point where we feel unable to move forward in life. Many people feel the pain of their loss, yet because their grief is unresolved, they get stuck in it. Their grieving produces more pain, and rather than diminishing over time, it only worsens. A person with unresolved grief is unable to move forward into a “new normal” and robbed of the abundant life that’s described in John 10:10.

Some time ago in a group session for those who had experienced a loss, participants were asked what they hoped they would get out of the meetings. One woman said: “I lost my husband several years ago and don’t know how to move forward. It’s hardly any different today than it was the week I lost him. I guess I’m stuck and don’t know what to do. I want to get unstuck.”

Another person responded: “My sister was murdered a few years ago, and I’m very angry with God. I have no peace of mind, and I feel terrible most of the time. I want some relief.”

A widower said: “I lost my wife last year, and I feel lost. I’m not sure who I am now. I don’t know what to do with all my pain. I want to move forward, but how in the world do I do that?”

These people, like many of us, don’t know what to do with their painful feelings. If we don’t learn to process our grief in a productive way, it can cripple us emotionally and relationally for a long, long time. What brings value and healing out of our suffering and pain is what we do with our grief—how we process it in order to move forward. Spend the next few minutes telling Jesus where you’re stuck and what you’d like to resolve.