Monday, December 13, 2010

The Lonely Journey of Grief, Part 11 of 15

IDEA: Faith is God’s gift to enable us to deal with the fears and insecurities we feel when death takes someone we love.

PURPOSE: To help listeners see the necessity of faith in coping with the fears and insecurities that the death of a loved one arouses.

Why do we grieve?

Edgar Jackson [You and Your Grief] suggests three roots of grief.

I. We grieve for ourselves.

The person who has died is beyond the problems and feelings of those who mourn his death. Our sorrow is for ourselves.

We are sad because we are suddenly and painfully deprived. We ache because we are separated from someone we love.

We feel this even when we admit to ourselves that we would not wish the suffering one back.

II. We grieve because we have fear.

The world has changed suddenly, and we don’t know what is ahead. Even more frightening, perhaps, are the childhood fears that are sometimes suddenly and terrifyingly awakened:

The fear of the unrevealed future.

The fear of having to pass through death ourselves.

This underground fear comes to the surface and may cause panic when someone close dies.

Doubt, as the opposite of faith, creates unreasoned fear. The fearful soul dies a thousand deaths, while the soul that is rooted in faith never fully dies. Faith knows the importance of creative adjustment to the circumstances we do not make but must accept.

III. We grieve because we feel insecure.

The solid earth beneath our feet has crumbled and we have nothing to hold on to. Our world totters.

The future threatens us.

Order has turned to disorder, and no power on earth can stop it.

If you have not found security through faith before death deprived you of someone you love, you must seek it until you find it now.