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It Is Written

John Bradshaw

From Grief to Hope

Coming up next, please stay tuned for It is Written, presented by Pastor John Bradshaw.

We both know that there are some things in life that we are going to experience no matter what.

And some of those experiences we wouldn't choose to experience if we had a choice.

But many of them, we don't have a choice.

Grief hurts, it's painful, and you're going to experience it sooner or later.

But what is grief and how do we deal with grief and what should a person do?

What could a person do when grief strikes close to home?

Well, I'm blessed to have with me in the studio today a good friend, Mike Tucker.

Pastor Mike Tucker is the speaker and director of Faith for Today, a Christian ministry.

You may well have seen Pastor Tucker hosting Lifestyle magazine, all leading out in 1 of his Mad About Marriage seminars.

Mike Tucker, thanks for joining me today.

Grief is an emotional, psychological, physical reaction to any experience of loss.

It can be loss through death, loss of a job, loss of a body part, anything else in your life that is significant, there may be a grief response to it.

Now, 1 of the reasons I'm speaking with you is because you're a trained counselor, a licensed marriage therapist, family expert, and you have some experience with grief as well, and we're gonna talk about that in just a moment.

Grief is just 1 of those things that everybody's gonna experience.

Everyone, you don't get out of life without grief, And most of your viewers have already had some experience with grief.

That varies according to life experiences.

Some people think that Christians shouldn't grieve.

Now there are certain things that you might ought to do when grief comes, we'll talk about those soon.

So before we explain it, there's probably ways you can equip yourself to deal with grief before it comes.

Yeah, Especially if you see a loss coming, you can engage in what we call anticipatory grief.

Being willing to go ahead and experience those tears and trying to anticipate what life will be like without them.

But I think beyond that is a matter of keeping relationships healthy and keeping yourself personally healthy, physically fit with positive relationships and a positive faith.

But having an appropriate picture of the nature of God, His personality, His character, what He has promised you, what He has not promised you, will actually help prepare you for grief.

Okay now, so you can grieve about different things.

Okay, what are the inappropriate ways to deal with grief?

What are the grief mistakes that people often make?

Some people try to stuff it or ignore it, act like it's not there, they will deny it.

Other people will try to out-medicate it, out-drink it, something of that nature.

They just won't give expression to the pain by crying.

They won't allow themselves to do those things.

Another inappropriate way would be to build a shrine to that which is lost.

You know, sometimes people build a shrine in their home to a person who's died.

You know, to do something like that temporarily may be understandable, but when you do this and it lasts for years, that can be another inappropriate way to deal with it.

But just a refusal to deal with the pain, to give expression through tears, through talking, those are all inappropriate responses.

As a pastor, I speak from time to time with people who will tell me, oh, I'm doing fine.

You know, it's been 6 weeks since my loved 1 died, and I find myself still weeping, and I just wish I was, that's just not realistic, is it?

The average recovery time for a significant loss is 1 to 2 years, although you can grieve actively for up to 5 years and not be pathological with that grief.

And even when we talk about recovery, that doesn't mean that you won't ever cry again.

It doesn't mean that you won't miss that person again.

That will be a part of your experience for the rest of your life, especially with a significant loss.

But it may mean that you come to the point where it's not the first thing on your mind every morning when you wake up, the last thing you think about before you go to bed, when you finally get to that point of recovery, so that you can function more normally.

I think it's important for people to know what's normal, what's acceptable, so that they don't think they have a problem they don't have.

I remember asking my wife's grandmother, and grandma was around 80 at the time, and I discovered that she'd had a baby girl, she raised 3 or 4 boys.

I should know whether it's 3 or 4, shouldn't I?

And she gave birth to a little girl who died very, very young as an infant.

And so this loss that she'd experienced had been about 60 years before, 55 to 60 years before, and I said to her, Grandma, you had a daughter.

And she said, yes, I, and just from out of nowhere, her voice choked and tears came.

55 to 60 years later, she was grieving a loss.

There's nothing wrong with that because this is an impactful experience for your life.

You may be able to function again, but you may have tears over this loss for the rest of your life.

Let's say somebody is a secretary working in an office situation.

I don't have to be a secretary, could be a departmental director, or guy works on a factory.

So you're surrounded by people, you gotta go back to life, you're putting in your 8 to 10 hours a day, but grief is just all over you and grief begs expression.

Well, the right thing for you to do if you're the person experiencing this is to recognize that your tears are going to come and that's okay.

And when they come, don't make an apology for them.

And if the people around you are savvy and they are understanding, then they're going to accept that and it's going to be normal.

So I would say, make sure that you give yourself ample room for mistakes.

You make sure you double check your work.

And then don't be afraid to give expression to the pain.

And don't be afraid to tell the stories because that's all a part of the process.

So to experience grief and to internalize grief, to express grief is all appropriate and fine.

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From Grief to Hope

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