What Is Good Grief?

Good grief begins at the place where we are willing to accept what the Father allowed to take place. We are no longer faulting Him for what He chose to allow of fallen free will or of the kingdom of darkness to express itself. Instead, we are willing to trust ourselves once again to His goodness and wisdom. We may still hate what had to be allowed, but with such acceptance, we are ready to go forward, seeking to handle our grief in a way that would be pleasing to Him. More, we are willing to place our journey through grief under His leadership, learning from Him step by step the way we should go.

It is possible to be at this starting point the very first moment that grief hits. That was my story. The Lord's preparation in me was evidently sufficient to help me withstand the first violent waves of emotional assault. The same spiritual darkness that brought June down to death that day, tried to destroy me through the pain of losing her. Yet, something about the grave danger of losing both June and my trust connection to Jesus in the same day, made me press into the Lord more vigorously than ever. Scripture calls this the fear of God. It's not that we fear God as if He didn't love us, but that we take care because our loving Father will let us reap what we sow.

An enemy the evil one had just torn my love from me. I didn't want him getting his hands on anything else. Somehow, I knew that if I didn't find the right way to go through this, then all June and I had worked towards in ministry would go down in flames. I was also well aware that our own dear children would have a far worse time of handling their grief the right way if I didn't manage mine. Other dangers also kept me in check. I had seen too many tragic examples of Christians who turned against God after losing a loved one recklessly destroying the possibilities of their own life in Christ. The thief just stole one love from me. I wasn't going to let him get two.

The Right One to Blame

Not everyone comes out of grief's first moments swinging at the enemy. Ok, maybe very few do. But it is the stance that you will want to take. King David said, Do I not hate those who hate you? I hate them with a perfect hatred (Psalm 139:22). A large part of good grief is making sure that the enemy gets the blame for everything wrong and God gets the praise for all that goes right. The truth is that it is God who is always and forever good and the enemy who is never anything but evil. Many grieving people suffer confusion on this point. It adds needlessly to their pain and greatly dishonors the Lord when it's the devil who should be getting a black eye.

The problem is that when we are in the grip of hard pain, we want someone to hit. God is an easy target. Good grief refuses to take those cheap shots. It wants to put the blame squarely where it belongs. In equal measure, it also wants to give grace and mercy wherever they are needed. Whenever anything wrong happens, there are only four legitimate directions for anger to go: to oneself, towards others, towards the kingdom of darkness, or towards nature. God is always innocent. He is so entirely good that it is impossible for Him to do wrong either by what He sends or by what He allows. Good grief would rather suffer through the slow tedious process of sorting out where the blame can correctly be placed, than get quick closure by blaming the innocent, especially God.

Once you've found where the blame belongs, don't stop there. Good grief wants everyone to receive the free gift of Gods mercy. Your loved one needs it, otherwise, you would have no hope of heaven for them. You need it, otherwise, you can have no hope of seeing them again. Therefore, if you want such mercy for yourself, Jesus requires you to give it to others. So, what if they don't deserve it? Neither do you!

Forgive anyone who may have been to blame for what happened except the evil one. Gods restoration and redemption don't work by fastening blame on people, or nature. His only desire is to throw the devil and his team into the lake of fire. He doesn't want anyone else to burn. And neither should you. If you have such feelings, get those contaminants out before they ruin you. You are not to blame for having them, only if you let them remain (see Clearing Out Contaminants).

The Necessity of Acceptance

There may be no one right way to grieve, but there are plenty of wrong ways. Misplaced anger towards God is only one of them. Our goal is healthy, fruitful grieving, not just venting or acting out. Always remember that others have walked this same path and many of them have found the way to walk it honorably, faithfully, and well. I say this not to condemn the ones who can't, but to take away the lie that it's OK to act badly or that no one could have experienced a loss like yours and have been able to bear it. That's just not true. Because God is here with us, there is always a way to walk faithfully.

The essence of our walk with the Lord is acceptance. We accept His mercy for us and His leadership over us. We accept that He loves us and always works for our good. We accept that His Word is true and rest our hope upon His promises. We accept that we have nothing to offer but an honest attempt to hold faith and be faithful. We accept that He alone knows the way we should go. We accept it that our need for Him is endless and trust that His love for us will never fail.

Feelings in Free Fall

The gaping wound of a great loss and the pain of grief are terribly hard things to accept. Can you see how it throws into question all that faith desires for us to accept? Yet, without acceptance, our walk of faith grinds to a halt. Feelings are the first thing to fall away. I can tell you that my feelings tried to carry me in the opposite direction from many things that faith had previously enabled me to feel. Be forewarned: If you let your feelings go into free fall, they will drag you down to the pits of hell every time.

Good grief wants to walk upright! This means recognizing that feelings are liars and can't be trusted as guides at a time like this. Indeed, negative feelings should always be met with suspicion and a hearty desire to be rid of them. They can only be trusted to show us how badly bruised our heart is. They are incapable of leading us to either healing or freedom.

If our goal is a healthy restoration, we will have to work at recovering faith-acceptance for what God has allowed. Then, recover faith that God truly is who we believed Him to be (and whom the scriptures declare Him to be) before the disaster occurred. Our prayer life should lead the way in this, weaving together our tears and sorrow with a right image of God, telling Him about everything that pains or confuses us, while asking for His help to trust Him and accept His leadership. So, we have to allow grieving to bring us to surrender, to accepting at a depth level the loss or injustice itself that it happened, how it happened; the pain it brought; what it did to us and our loved ones; and the failed ways in which we have tried to respond.

Restoration of Acceptance

We want to eventually come to complete acceptance of all that He allows, not because these were good things and we liked them, but because even a thoroughly good and loving God found reasons why they had to be allowed. And then couple that acceptance with belief that He has great redemptive plans waiting to be birthed that will overcome the very evils that have caused Him and us so much pain. He had to accept what He had to allow, and we need to follow in His steps.

God helping us, we accept that He has done nothing wrong, that He is grieving with us, and even that He has been wounded by these evils more than we have been. Then, we choose to believe the truth of His Magnificent Promise (Romans 8:28): that He is determined to bring a greater good out of even the worst evils so that His goodness will always ultimately triumph over evil in the lives of His redeemed children.

A grieving heart wants to return to trust, accepting that God is in control and that God is good. This cleanses the grief of any distortion that the wound may have caused to our relationship with the Most Important Person in our life. It restores a necessary rightness to the center of our being. How can our grief ever be good, if there is wrongness in our heart towards the only One (according to Jesus) who is good, God? With the Lord once again enthroned in our heart, the grieving can go forward under His leadership and it will be good grieving. Acceptance of Gods sovereign goodness gives us a restored measure of peace to undergird the process.

Moving On

There are many other things that good grief desires. They will rise naturally in your heart once you've cleared the way (by recovering trust and acceptance) for the Lord's thoughts and desires to surface in you. I can only share with you what rose in me. I found that I wanted to love everyone and cherish every moment with them, even strangers. Something about losing June made me realize how precious life really is, and how fragile.

In terms of June, I desired to reach a cleaner, clearer relationship with her in my heart and in my memories. So, I went over all my thoughts and feelings about her with a fine-tooth comb, seeking to weed out any wrong attitudes I may have picked up over the years. Wherever I had been at fault, I asked God for forgiveness; wherever she had been, I forgave her. Above all, I wanted to honor the call to cry and grieve whenever or wherever it came. This kept the river of grief flowing forward.

Prayer

Dear Lord, help me turn this unwanted sorrow into Your good grief. I still have so much to learn about You and Your ways, but the grief already is drawing me deeper into the Mystery of Your never-ending love. Draw me Lord! Restore me to those higher states of trust and acceptance that I knew before my loved ones death came crashing into my life. This grief will help me get there again thats its essential work, its heaven-sent goodness. Despite its pain, help me stay with the grief until this journey is completed. And I stand on higher ground, closer to You my God and Friend, than I’ve ever been before.

Scripture

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. Proverbs 9:10

Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies. Psalm 139:21-22

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

All scripture citations are from the English Standard Version (ESV) unless otherwise noted.