Anger
Nothing can make friends, family and Christians scatter like the anger of grief. Anger is usually directed at those the griever feels closest to since it is safer than directing it at strangers. Anger typically stems from feeling that the loss is unfair and it comes wrapped in the “why” and “why me” questions. Consciously or unconsciously, this anger is ultimately directed at God. Like Job of the Bible, Christians need time to process their anger. Unlike Job’s friends, Christians need to listen and empathize without preach theology.
Christians can talk passionately with someone about the joy of the Lord, but then become dogmatic when it comes to mental suffering. If a church body is going to minister to the grieving, its attitude …show more content…
This is one of the most disuniting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to him with gratitude and praise, you will be – or so it feels – welcomed with open arms. But go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. . . . Why is He so present a commander in our times of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of …show more content…
Without the assurance of heaven, there can be no true hope. The most a non-Christian can hope for is to move past the pain and rebuild a life that will eventually end without hope. For the Christian, acceptance is knowing that God will be part of this life and there is a future life. Christian should do not grieve as those who have no hope [1 Thessalonians 4:13]. Acceptance, the final stage of grief, does not mean the griever is now “pleased” with the loss. Why would the Christian be pleased when God is not pleased with many things in this world. It also does not mean things are now back to “normal”. A severe loss changes people. Christians, of all people, should understand this. God’s purpose is to change all of us and he can use anything to accomplish it. Acceptance may simply mean an acknowledgement that God is sovereign and this is our new life. One of the things Lewis finally accepted was the reality of suffering. This struggle is revealed in his statement, “Aren’t all these notes the senseless writings of a man who won’t accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer
Nothing can make friends, family and Christians scatter like the anger of grief. Anger is usually directed at those the griever feels closest to since it is safer than directing it at strangers. Anger typically stems from feeling that the loss is unfair and it comes wrapped in the “why” and “why me” questions. Consciously or unconsciously, this anger is ultimately directed at God. Like Job of the Bible, Christians need time to process their anger. Unlike Job’s friends, Christians need to listen and empathize without preach theology.
Christians can talk passionately with someone about the joy of the Lord, but then become dogmatic when it comes to mental suffering. If a church body is going to minister to the grieving, its attitude …show more content…
This is one of the most disuniting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to him with gratitude and praise, you will be – or so it feels – welcomed with open arms. But go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. . . . Why is He so present a commander in our times of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of …show more content…
Without the assurance of heaven, there can be no true hope. The most a non-Christian can hope for is to move past the pain and rebuild a life that will eventually end without hope. For the Christian, acceptance is knowing that God will be part of this life and there is a future life. Christian should do not grieve as those who have no hope [1 Thessalonians 4:13]. Acceptance, the final stage of grief, does not mean the griever is now “pleased” with the loss. Why would the Christian be pleased when God is not pleased with many things in this world. It also does not mean things are now back to “normal”. A severe loss changes people. Christians, of all people, should understand this. God’s purpose is to change all of us and he can use anything to accomplish it. Acceptance may simply mean an acknowledgement that God is sovereign and this is our new life. One of the things Lewis finally accepted was the reality of suffering. This struggle is revealed in his statement, “Aren’t all these notes the senseless writings of a man who won’t accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer