The Grieving Road
For a specific reason, this idea of stages of grief is on my mind lately. I am going through my own form of grieving and it had me wondering this evening. Just what are the stages and is there something I could learn from what psychology has figured out so far. So, I went to the great tool of the interested, the curious, or the desperate, depending on how you look at it. I went to Google.
What I found is something called the Five Stages of Grief by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. There are several other pages with stages of grief. It seems that there is some discrepancy on how many stages there are. Kubler-Ross’ five stages are these:
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
After reading about these stages, it kind of made sense to me. I have only suffered two great losses in my life. The first being the loss of my mother and grandmother. I consider them as one because I lost them within a month of each other. Looking back, I can see clearly that I did go through these stages. There is no time period ascribed to the stages. In the case of the loss of my beloved ones, I remember that some stages dragged on and others passed rather quickly. The depression stage was the longest I think.
As a Christian though, I wonder. Is it acceptable to God that we go through these stages that are recognized as common when accepting horrid, heartbreaking events in our lives? Are we not asked to jump from the event to stage 5 rather quickly as believers? Shouldn’t we be able to say “Yes Lord, I accept this pain, this loss” and then just move on? I don’t know. As I said, I am struggling myself right now with the grieving process and part of me feels as if I am denying Christ, disbelieving God, not trusting or obeying Him by going through the stages.
The modern psychological model suggests that if we do not go through the first four stages, we will not ever really come to stage 5 in a healthy way and be able to move on. We are called, as believers, to be set apart, a peculiar people, a people who do not react as the world does and so I am left with feeling as if my falling in line with the psychological stages of grieving lumps me in with the world and does not testify to the fact and truth that I am saved and I am set apart.
I wonder. Does God expect me to jump to stage 5, somehow, miraculously? Or, does He understand and forgive my need to work through the steps that seem to be the norm for us humans? Tonight, I am thinking on these things. I want to be able to say, “Yes Lord” in all things but at times that is very hard. I know enough to know that if I try to whitewash my feelings, my emotions, by trying to jump to stage 5 in my own strength, I will be cheating and will have to go back at some future time and start at stage 1 again. I don't want to end up like the proverbial "dog chasing her own tail."
If you are reading this, I would love to know. How have you handled grief in your life? If you are a Christian, I would particularly like to ask how you have handled grief? I know these are personal, perhaps hard questions but your sharing would be greatly appreciated.
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