How to Overcome Grief

Grief is a part of the healing process when you have experienced any kind of loss. Getting past that grief, whether it is over the loss of a loved one, a relationship or a job, and moving on with your life may leave you feeling like a stranger in a strange land. The familiar may seem unfamiliar and the routine may become a challenge when you are filtering everything through the haze of sorrow and confusion brought on by grief.

You need to keep in mind that even during your moments of greatest sorrow, you are not alone. Remember that you are eternally in the presence of God’s divine love, which fills any void temporarily left by grief.

“This is my comfort in my distress, that your promises give me life.”
Psalm 119:50

There are experts who break down the stages of grief into six categories. These can be very helpful when defining the various phases you go through as you adjust to traumatic events in your life:

Stage One: Denial & Isolation
Stage Two: Anger
Stage Three: Bargaining
Stage Four: Depression
Stage Five: Acceptance
Stage Six: Resurrection

While these six stages are an excellent way to gauge whether you are moving forward, there is another way to look at grief and how you handle it – a three-part process of meeting it, managing it and mastering it. These three phases allow you to process your grief in your life in clear, straight-forward ways that enable you to move forward with God’s help.

Meeting Your Grief

Meeting your grief is the process of letting it in and acknowledging it. You need to get past the denial that you may go through in the early stages after something tragic has occurred. You can’t cope properly with sorrow unless you are able to face it head-on, accepting it for what it is and how it is impacting your life.

Praying for God’s help as you face your grief will give you the strength to accept the loss and understand that you have the strength with His love to survive that loss. There are many different kinds of loss that can be a source of grief. Regardless of what they are, you must be able to meet them and look them square in the face and be able to embrace it, if not willingly, at least realistically.

Sometimes we deny losses in our lives for many months or even years rather than meeting them and acknowledging them. Examples of loss like this include: loss of trust, loss of love, marriage or a spouse, loss of virginity, loss of security, loss of acceptance, loss of friendship, loss of innocence, loss of education, loss of security, loss of a child or loss of employment.

When you are ready to let go of the festering pain that these losses are causing you, pray to the Lord and He will help you Meet Your Grief. You will need to take that time to properly mourn. You may cry for a while, or spend some time alone or talk with someone who understands your pain. Whatever you need to do to allow the pain to be washed away is fine. At that point, you have taken the first step toward overcoming your grief.

Managing Your Grief

Managing your grief means understanding how to live your life and move forward with grief as a part of the whole. The Lord will give you the strength to integrate your sorrow into your daily living and learn how to slowly overcome the pain and depression that may have stopped you from moving forward before you met your grief. Management is about being able to slowly let the normalcy of life back into your days and giving yourself permission to move on. When your life begins to feel familiar to you once again, you are successfully managing your grief.

Mastering Your Grief

Mastering your grief is when you are able to move past it and overcome it. You do not have to forget the past or lose the memories of what has happened, but you do have to overcome the power that the grief has to hurt you. It is healthy to grieve a loss, but there comes a time for the mourning to end and new life to begin.

Mastering your grief can be difficult because you may feel guilty moving on, but God assures us that our lives are meant to have many different phases and nothing, including grief, is meant to last forever. He has created a world for us that is meant to be celebrated even when bad things happen.

There is a time for everything,
       and a season for every activity under heaven…
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
       a time to mourn and a time to dance.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

When you have a grief to cope with, remember that the Lord is always listening and will be there to give you comfort and support. Pray for His help and you will find that the road toward meeting, managing and mastering your grief will be one you can travel with less sorrow than you would have expected.

Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father,

I know that in Your presence I will find everything that I ever need. Thank you for your love, which is so great that You desire to restore my life in every way.

Thank you that I don’t have to live forever with sadness, hurt or depression. I know that You will come to my aid in my time of sorrow and comfort me. I have grieved the losses in my life, and I am so thankful that You have brought me to a place of peace and resurrection. As I move forward to pick up the pieces of my life a divine transformation is taking place, and a new me is emerging while letting go of the hurt and the pain.

I choose peace this day and worship You, the God of peace and love.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

The indwelling love of God is our source of inspiration for overcoming grief. Thank You, God , for Your presence of love, life, and light.