Things I Learned In Grief-share..
Death is just awkard and uncomfortable to deal with. And. Let's be honest, we all have had to run into the issue of what to do when someone close to our hearts leaves earth and we weren't ready for them to go. We all have experienced loss, we all have lost someone to death, in one way or another. And.. we all will go through it numerous times in our lifetime with different people. Grief is the death of a person or an experience so its not just for the death of a person, but perhaps a 10 year marriage, or a long-term career that ended, or a 20 year long friendship. These apply as well.
When someone first told me about Grief-Share Support Group to help me cope with a loss, I thought to myself, "Oh, that's really nice and sweet that they offered that kind of help to me, and that is neat how people take the time to teach that class for others, but it is not for me and I could never sit there and just be expected to cry or grieve over something so private and over someone that was so special to me in front of a bunch of strangers." I didn't want to even think about crying in front of strangers- what would they think of me? I would be too embarrassed for that! and.. why would I want to watch other people grieve over their loved one, as well? I mean, I can barely even deal with mine how am I going to react to listening to theirs too? There is NO way, Jose! Not ever going to do that!
Then, a short amount of time later, God began to allow me to have intense visions and flashbacks and dreams about my baby I had lost many years ago that I never grieved. It was so surreal, and I felt like I had really gone back in time and was really back there in the hospital room looking at my dying son in the incubator. And. it shook me to my core with an over whelming feeling of sadness and regret that I almost burst into tears every time I had one. After a few weeks of that, I was convinced and told God, " Okay God I get it now- you want me to go to grief-share, so I will give it a try, just please make the visions stop." God has His ways of doing things for us when we won't do it for ourselves haha.
For those that don't know what Greif-Share is, it is a support group for people to gather with other people who are also hurting in a similar way to you=grieving the loss of someone that was very special to them. They don't know how to cope properly with it and should not have to do it alone. It happens more than once to every single person in this world- we all lose someone that was deeply special to us. It's hard no matter what, and no matter when, and no matter who you are. Grief has a way of changing us. It is meant to.
Some don't even know they need it. Take me, for example, I waited 17 years before willingly grieving the loss of my baby boy Julion. I lost him at 19 years old, and God finally prompted me at the age of 37-38 to finally process it and release it. 17 years I held onto that!
But God... He knows the right time and place for everything to occur, and He chose this time 17 years later for me to attend grief-share, and it was one of the best things I ever did. It was, by far, one of the best choices I've ever made for myself. That class did not just help me and did not just give me a safe and compassionate space to deal with and talk about and process my emotions, it gave me something I can always take with me for the rest of my life - tools I can apply next time life throws me loss, because we know it will, without question. I got way more than I ever expected to out of that class.
The hardest part is admitting and becoming willing to share your grief with others. When we grieve alone, we are not doing it right. God did not intend us to do that, so it never goes how it should when we isolate in grief. But as humans, we tend to think self-centeredly and think there is something wrong with us for wanting to grieve so much, so our pride tells us to do it in private. We tell ourselves that no one really understands how we are feeling or what we are really going through, and every time we try to share our grief, it doesn't get reciprocated like we want or need or expect, or we tell ourselves no one wants to see us cry because it shows we are weak. A huge benefit of greif-share is: you make more friends and build a bigger support system than you ever imagined, and you find out that you are nowhere by far the only one going through what you are going through- it brings a profound sense of unity and oneness with your other brothers and sisters in Christ who grieve alongside you. It brings you closer to them, you learn how to become more emotionally & spiritually intimate with others, and that is never a bad thing to learn in life, for it will help you in other relationships you deal with in the future. The positives of this class, for me, were life-altering, for the rest of my life.
The list is long of reasons we have for avoiding what we really need. And so... we grieve improperly. When you grieve the wrong way, you do not really process it the right way or how God intended you to. And when it's not done right, you are missing out on an amazing opportunity to learn and be transformed. Pressing into the pain with the right people is paramount in the grieving process. No one wants to grieve their loved one with strangers, I get it. But those strangers in that grief-share class know more about what you are going through than anyone else, and, not only that, but they are there and ready to listen to your every detail you speak and every tear that falls, they are there to comfort all of it, because they WANT to, because listening to you go through your pain actually helps them get through theirs a little bit better, and so, you help them, and then they also end up helping you heal, too. It's truly amazing!! And that is not all....
By the time you are done with this class, God changes your perception about life, death, and everything that happens in between so that you don't look at things the same as you did before, you look at them with more joy and peace than you ever have. It's weird how that works out but it just does because that is who God is and He can do anything, and He is amazing.
Here is another added bonus: God has managed to change you in such a way that now you are one step closer to being able to fulfill your God-given purpose in life. The reason God created you and the reason you have gone through what you have, is all for a chance that you might help others in God's kingdom one day using Him and what you've been though and how it has changed you. You can't be used by God until God does a work in and through you. Grief, pain, and loss is exactly how He accomplishes that.
We can't live up to our purpose when we have not gone through the right processes in life ... but once we do, look out world and look out Satan, because here we come...ready for battle against the war on sin and its consequences!
Comments
Post a Comment