Finding the Light in GriefSample

DAY 1

FIVE STAGES

Welcome to our 3 Minutes A Day Series on Grief. Unfortunately, grief is one of those inevitable things about life. Every one of us will experience grief more than once in our lifetime.

Often, we think of grief over the loss of life. However, the truth is we can also grieve over things that are not living. We can grieve over the loss of a job, a house, or even future plans that will be lost. Jesus Himself grieved over the city of Jerusalem in Luke 19:41. In this event, Jesus was weeping over the calamity of a lost opportunity.

To help us understand grief from a psychological standpoint, we can examine the work of Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler. In 1969, they developed a theory that grief has five stages. These stages are denial, anger, bargaining (making deals with ourselves or with God, wishing to change a situation to feel better), depression, and acceptance.

Kübler-Ross and Kessler explain the framework for working through grief comes in unsystematic stages and does not necessarily work in order. One might deny the loss or become angry. Sometimes we try to bargain away the pain by changing a situation’s outcome. Often depression, or deep sadness, is seen as a typical response to loss. Eventually, we understand the loss and how to move through life while still longing for what we lost.

These five stages are not necessarily a comprehensive list of grief; however, they are generic stages of the grieving process. In addition, we all move through the grieving process differently. Just because we grieved one way during a loss does not mean we will grieve the same for another loss.

Each loss in our lives impacts us differently. We must allow ourselves the time to grieve properly, as our hearts need time to heal from the loss.

This week, we will examine Scripture as we seek God in our grief. You may wonder why this week's title has only one verse. Have no worries! We will look at more Scripture this week; however, our focus verse is powerful. It will help us understand God’s heart in our pain of loss.

I want to leave you with this today as we close: you may feel alone in your grief, but the truth is we have a God who feels our pain and cares for us.

I’ll see you tomorrow as we come to understand how we can connect with God through our pain so that we may feel His presence and caring arms.

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