One afternoon while driving to my counselor's office, I began thinking about longevity in ministry. I asked myself this question, "How in the world does any Pastor make it to retirement?" I was dealing with some issues beneath the surface of my life that had been triggered by difficulties and challenges within the Church. As I drove I found myself wishing I could find someone who had pastored a church for more than 30 years and ask them this question, "What's the secret? How did you make it that far?"
During my session with my counselor, I came to the realization that I was struggling with grief and loss. I had stuffed my pain and my sadness down deep into my soul hoping that those emotions would somehow disappear so I wouldn't have to deal with them again. The way I would deal with loss is to work. Working would keep me distracted enough so that I did not have to deal with the pains and losses of life and ministry. After years of stuffing, I came to discover that emotions buried alive never die. Like the walking dead, they eventually came back to haunt me!
In my journey of the soul, I came to realize that the secret to happiness in life and longevity in ministry is grieving well.
When we read the story of Job in the Scriptures, we feel awful for him because he lost everything in one day, his family, his wealth, his health, and his possessions. What I have been learning over the years is that we are all Job, except our losses happen over a lifetime. We eventually lose our kids to adulthood, our jobs to retirement, our health to aging, our loved ones to death, and eventually we lose all of our possessions at the end of our lives. All throughout our lives we face many deaths that need to be grieved.
Life is a series of losses and so is ministry.
In ministry we lose members, we lose relationships, we lose people we love, and we lose our energy and youthfulness. For me, one of the hardest things I have had to deal with is losing the people I love. Some because of retirement or relocation, others because they were hurt or offended. Losing people has always been the hardest for me especially when they leave and they don't tell me why.
What do we do when we experience loss? We grieve well.
I know that grieving is not something we love to experience. We don't like how grieving feels, we don't like what it does to us emotionally, and we don't like the feelings that bring to the surface, but God created us with the ability to grieve so we can heal from what we have lost.
Grief is our natural response to any loss. It's the emotional suffering we experience when something or someone has been taken away from you. It can feel overwhelming. Grieving is messy, but what I am learning is that grieving is healing and an essential ingredient in living and leading well. Healthy souls grieve well. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, or timetable to determine how long you should grieve. What is the most important is that you allow yourself to grieve. Create the space to grieve. Ignoring loss will not make the pain go away faster. That's a myth. Grieving allows you to face your pain, in the presence of the one who heals you of your pain.
1 Thessalonians 4:13,
"Do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope." When we grieve we grieve with hope, knowing and believing that grieving is healing, God is with us, God is present with us, and God will work all things that we experience in our life and somehow bring good out of it. The more we allow ourselves to grieve, the more we allow ourselves to heal, the more we are able to experience joy. Psalm 30:5,
"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning."
What I am learning is the more I allow myself to feel sadness over the losses I have experienced in life, the more I am able to experience the joys of life.
When I allow myself to feel sadness, I enlarge my soul to feel happiness. Over these past several years I have been the happiest I have ever been in my life because I have grieved the most I have ever grieved in my life. When losses come, I choose to grieve instead of stuff. What I am learning is that the more I grieve the easier it is to grieve and the quicker I heal from those losses.
I am learning how to grieve based on Jesus example of grief and loss as he led his disciples in communion on the night that he was betrayed. Jesus did three things which gives us an example of how to grieve well.
1. HOLD THE CUP.
When Jesus gathered His disciples he took the cup, as he held it He gave thanks. We all will be given a cup to drink. That cup represents loss, sorrow and pain. My cup may look different than your cup, but we will all be given a cup. When Jesus was in the garden, He even prayed in Luke 22:42, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done." When we experience loss, we are to hold it, and give God thanks. We are to pay attention to it and not ignore it. We don't thank Him for the loss, but we thank Him for the strength, we thank Him because He is good, and we thank Him because we know that somehow and someway good will come from the pain. When we hold the cup we hold the pain, we hold the sorrow, and we hold the loss. We allow ourselves to feel it. We surrender it to God and pray, not my will, but yours be done.
2. RAISE THE CUP.
We raise the cup to God. We offer Him our grief and our sorrow in that painful and confusing place we may find ourselves in. We give Him our pain. We release everything to Jesus who knows all things. We offer our suffering to Jesus. Jesus is a man of sorrows, acquainted with our grief. He knows what we feel. He knows what we are experiencing. He weeps with those who weeps. He mourns with those who mourn. When we raise our cup to Him, He meets us and He comforts us and He gives us the strength to walk through what we are walking through.
3. DRINK THE CUP.
After we raise the cup to Jesus, we drink the cup. We accept what has happened and we allow it to be absorbed into our lives. The suffering, the loss and the pain shape us and make us into the people God calls us to be. Absorbing the loss also allows the old to birth the new. Resurrection only comes out of suffering and death. You can only experience a new beginning when you choose to embrace an ending.
I love what Pete Scazerro says, "Grieving is not just letting go, but also letting it bless us."
As I have learned to grieve, I have allowed grief to bless me. I have experienced healing, and have found a new found joy and strength from God. Grieving has also helped me love others better and be more in tune and in touch with others who are going through grief and loss. I am learning to be more empathetic, compassionate, caring and kind. I am becoming more loving, gracious, and concerning. I haven't arrived, but I am growing and learning. Grieving well has made such a better leader, and most importantly a better follower of Jesus. My prayer for you today is that you grow in grief and discover the secret of grieving well.
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