Grief: intense sorrow, sharp mental suffering over a loss, deep regret
I have experienced grief in many different ways over the years: I have lost two siblings in separate car accidents, I have suffered the grief that accompanies divorce, the grief that comes with extreme sacrifice and dreams dying. I have experienced grief over the loss of health as I watched my life become limited and ruled by the sickness in my body. Other causes of grief can be the loss of relationships, careers, youth, innocence, or bankruptcy.
Grief is grief no matter what the cause.
Grief has been scientifically shown to manifest as physical symptoms, and sometimes even diseases. People that avoid facing grief can experience maladies such as headaches, pain, auto-immune disorders, digestive issues, sleep issues (too much or too little), energy loss, illness, nervousness, and weight gain/loss. Many times when these symptoms are present, they get treated, but the source doesn’t. This can lead to lingering symptoms that seem to be unshakeable. This is why I believe it is so important to recognize and overcome grief. I speak from experience.
In 2016, Patrick and I sold everything we owned and moved to the Middle East to study Arabic. Jordan would become our wilderness, and within two months of the move, I was experiencing grief that led to a deep depression. Despite overcoming all of the tragedies of my past, this was the one that I couldn’t work through on my own. I just couldn’t get passed it. As a result, symptoms began developing in my body that I hadn’t experienced in the two years since I had received my complete healing. Unchecked grief opened the door for the enemy to attack me physically and emotionally.
The source of my grief
1) Loss of vision and purpose:
Before our move overseas, Father had placed a vision in my heart of teaching, and I was right on track to walk into that vision. I had taught at our Bible college’s Healing School and was asked to be involved in the management of the School. It was a dream come true that had to be turned down because of our new commission from Father to go learn Arabic in Jordan. In my mind, my purpose in God’s Kingdom, to teach His people, had died and was being replaced with an environment that was completely foreign.
Once in Jordan, I began to feel like the Dead Sea on the inside. I had all of this amazing revelation and passion in my heart, but in the Middle East, I had no voice and no outlet to minister. All of the good stuff that had flowed into me over my years in Bible college was stagnating because there was nowhere for it to flow out to. My vision of teaching did not fit in with what I was experiencing – a society where women were neither heard nor respected – and that was very difficult to wrap my mind around and accept. Believing that we would be there forever, I thought my call to be a teacher had died. That hit me hard, and I grieved that loss deeply.
2) Loss of my two miniature dachshunds:
Remember, grief is grief no matter what the cause. My two dachshunds, Maggie and Fritz, were 11 and 12 when we left for Jordan. I truly didn’t care about giving anything else up – house, car, material possessions – but I had raised them both from eight weeks’ of age, and I had made a vow to take care of them until their last breaths. They were my babies.
I know some of you can’t understand this, but giving them up was like giving up my son and daughter. For many years, they were the only good and steady things in my life. They had been with me through a terrible divorce, one marked by rejection and pain. They were my source of joy in the midst of misery. They were my little clowns. When it felt like no one else loved me and that I was completely alone, they showed me love. They were God with fur.
After we arrived in Jordan, I could think of nothing else. Images of the day we had to take my boy to the vet to put him down, and my girl being driven off in the backseat of her new mommy’s car, played on a continuous loop in my mind. Whenever I closed my eyes, I could see the confusion and fear in their eyes. Thoughts tormented me night and day, causing my heart to break over and over again. The grief reached unbearable levels. It felt like I was going crazy as my thoughts spiraled out of control.
The Tipping Point
One night after weeks of tormenting grief, I cracked. After pouring out the broken pieces of my heart to Patrick in that ugly cry, and having him look at me with that deer-in-the-headlights look, not knowing what to say because he was in the middle of his own grief over the loss of life as we knew it, I realized that I needed help. Patrick didn’t have the answers. I didn’t have the answers. But I knew Someone that did. So, I did something I should have done much sooner … I sat down on the couch with my Bible and I asked Father to help me get through the grief over these losses.
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”
James 1:5
I was cracking under the pressure and I needed wisdom before I broke. Over the next couple of hours, Father lovingly and gently showed me the way to break the chains of bondage that grief had so tightly wrapped around me . By the end of my sit-down with Him, I was already beginning to heal. I was beginning to breathe. I could see a glimmer of light that had not been there just a few short hours before.
I know that no matter what it may be that is the source of your grief, what He showed me will help not only you, but those around you that may be struggling with it. The process He walked me through came in two distinct parts: What you need to know and what you need to do. In our next article, we’ll address what it is you need to know to get started on the road to recovering from grief.
You can leave the place of grief behind once and for all.
I know. I’ve been there … and left.