He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows . . . (Isaiah 53:3-4).
At a workshop I attended on grief and loss, one of the points the presenting psychologist made was, "Loss is anytime life is different from how I wanted or expected it to be." If that is true then in every counseling situation the counselor has to deal with grief. With every problem comes the realization that life doesn't match the picture of life we have in our heads. Our "should-be" world has been lost.
It is a fallen world in which we live, so our dreams of a perfect world, on this earth, will never be realized. As a result, we will always struggle with grief in this life. Grief is not a bad thing--it is an emotional response to the loss of something important or someone who was dear and loved. A person who doesn't grieve is a person who does not care, a person who does not love. What kind of person is that? Nevertheless, even though grief does not ever really go away, it cannot dominate our lives because life does not stop. Grief must be managed because we still have a life to live! Because of Christ, we can find meaning and hope in our grief, . . . that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again . . . (I Thessalonians 4:13-14). It is in Jesus that grief finds its resolution because His resurrection gives us a legitimate hope for a reunion with loved ones; hope for a perfect world in which we will live and the perfect presence of the One who created all things.
Grace&Peace,
Tom
*Revised from an earlier post.
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