Saturday, June 2, 2007

Good Grief

Grief is a funny thing in human beings. I had so much to do preparing last year to leave my former pastorate and getting ready to come to a new church that I did not give myself either time or permission to grieve all the things I lost in the move. Not the loss of physical things, though I'm sure some of my stuff might still be missing. I'm thinking instead of the loss of relationships, some that had been nurtured and sustained for years. Pastors have difficulty with grief in general. We are so used to helping others grieve, being strong and supportive, that we forget sometimes that we need to grieve as well. It took some time and some work, but I have recently been able to acknowledge a lot of my own grief about the massive change that took place in my life, and the lives of my family, over the last year.

Change causes us to grieve because we like stability. We like things to stay the same. But they almost never do. Some changes are good—indoor plumbing is one thing I really appreciate, for example. Some changes are not so good—the fact that food, mostly fast food, is available on nearly every corner is not a good change for me. Some changes are both good and bad—cell phones enable us to call someone in the event of an emergency but also can keep us tied down 24 hours a day, seven days a week, unable to take Sabbath time.

One of the things I had to learn this past year was that it is OK to grieve when things change. We need to learn to express our grief in healthy ways by acknowledging it and working through it. Grief, like other emotions, only becomes problematic when either we deny how we feel or when we hold on to our grief for so long we refuse to see the future God has planned for us. A lesson that I have spent the last year learning is that spending too much time in grief keeps us from being able to see God’s good future.

When I left Kroger for the ministry one of my employees gave me a paperweight with this verse on it:
“For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a good future.” Jeremiah 29:11

The verse has remained on my desk and in my heart since then. While we don’t always understand why things happen the way they do, what we can be sure of is that God wants for us to be hopeful of the future that is being prepared for us. Jeremiah wrote this verse in the time of the Exile, when Babylon had begun taking Jews as captives from Israel, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. So these words were not written in happy times, but instead when times were bleak and the Jewish people were experiencing a lot of grief.

Jeremiah reminds us that God always has a good future planned for us. While sometimes we might not really understand what God is doing, we always can trust that our God is good. Grief over change can lead to joy about the future, if we are willing to let go our grief and instead grab God's hand as he leads us on.

1 comment:

Hannah Ruth said...

that is a really good point. i even struggle with that alot(i know, hard to believe, isn't it.) school and sports really hold me back from doing God's work. i mean, instead of going on my youth's mission trip, im going to cheerleading camp.bummer how life works.