The Gift of Grief

An excerpt from Shadow Ground: Sowing Seeds of Purpose in the Shadow of Depression and Anxiety (Part Three, Chapter Nine)

Tim Ross, a podcaster I admire, often says, “Grief is the price you pay for love.” He also reminds us that, “What you don’t properly grieve, you won’t properly leave.” For the longest time, I believed grief was something reserved for the loss of a loved one. But life has taught me that grief isn’t limited to death; it’s something we encounter in many areas of our lives. In Chapter Two, I spoke about how our bodies carry more than we realise, and grief is one of the heaviest burdens they bear. Whether it’s over lost possessions, people, or places that held significance, our bodies carry this grief, often without our conscious awareness.

We love to talk about Joseph’s journey from the pit to the prison to the palace, celebrating the triumph. But we tend to overlook the deep pain he must have endured and the post-traumatic stress he likely carried with him. His story is laid out in Genesis chapters 37 to 48. If anyone knew about the trials of life, it was Joseph, the son of Jacob. I can imagine him pushing those feelings aside, trying to stay positive as he built a new life with his wife and children. But sooner or later, the body has a way of reminding us of what we’ve been through, demanding that we pause and grieve.

Joseph’s down-the-line moment came when he faced the brothers he thought he’d never see again. His grief, entangled with betrayal, anger and abandonment bubbled up to the surface and he had to pause. The Bible says he retreated privately. For me, the down-the-line came with the birth of my daughter. Looking into her innocent face, I was overwhelmed by a flood of emotions of pain, regret, anger, disappointment, rejection, inadequacy, and struggles with body image. It took me a long time to recognise what I needed to do… grieve. 

I had to remember and grieve. I had to sit with my grief, acknowledge it, and appreciate it for what it was, a sign that I had loved deeply. The losses, though varied, were painful and worthy of being mourned. What do you need to grieve? What have you lost that you loved dearly? Stop lying to yourself. Your body knows the truth, and as long as you refuse to face it, you’ll carry those heavy burdens far longer than God ever intended. Grieve, my friend. No matter how much time has passed, allow yourself to grieve.

“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God and his rule. You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.” ~ Matthew 5:3-4 (MSG)

Have you ever been grieved? If you’ve lived any length of time, I’m sure your answer is yes. Last week at church I had the privilege of praying with a young man who is grieving the loss of his grandfather and since then I’ve been thinking a lot about grief. Life is hard and with its hardness, it hardens us, making us develop this thick exterior so we can survive the day-to-day. I brought this to the Lord in prayer and He showed me a wildly different perspective.

God placed a unique seed on the inside of each of us when He created us in the secret place. I’m the last person you ever want to ask about seeds or planting or anything of the sort, but thankfully I remember a little from my primary school science for God to use to teach me. After a seed is planted in the soil, the seed coat, which is hard and closed off, absorbs water and swells until it ruptures and splits open. From the inside of this hard exterior, a soft life-bearing root emerges and begins the growth of a new plant. When it seems as though life is giving you a beating and your heart is retreating deeper and deeper into the tough exterior walls you’ve had no choice but to create for survival, recognise that it’s just a coat, covering what God placed inside of you… The seed of who you are.

Life will try to toughen us beyond the tenderness God desires our hearts to have. This is why He gave us the gift of grief. Yes, friend, grief is a gift, a failsafe that God put in place when He knew the impact sin would have on the tenderness of our hearts. As the coat layers try to cover who we truly are and separate our hearts from our Father, God uses grief to help us shed that coat. When the process of grief does what only it can do, that coat falls off allowing God to plant the seed of who we are and lead us into steps of fruitfulness. How do we position ourselves to allow God to do His work without us getting in the way?

Understand that not everyone can grieve with you.

Grief is good. According to God’s Word, though it may not have been a part of his initial perfect plan, grief is a gift from God. How else would we properly process the pain we were bound to experience because of sin and death? The seed that God placed on the inside of you is precious and vulnerable. Not everyone can be present when you’re going through the processes God uses to expose and plant the seed of you, one of them being grief. Ever wonder why certain people remove themselves from your life when you’re grieving? They claim they didn’t know what to do or say, or that they didn’t want to be a burden, yet I’ve come to recognise and appreciate that they just don’t have what it takes to sit with you as you unravel.

Unravelling is scary and uncomfortable, yet it’s in that uncomfortable place that the coat over the seed can absorb the love of God, swell and erupt. God knows that not everyone can and should have access to you at that critical time. And so, they scatter. In the pain of that abandonment, more grief is necessary and more of the seed of you is revealed. Not everyone is called to be present for this and that’s okay. If you can understand this for the reality that it is, you can unburden your heart of all the disappointment and begin to properly grieve.

Appreciate redirection for what it is.

Could it be that God is calling you to lay down old patterns? It’s wild that no matter what season we find ourselves in, the answer is yes, yes, a thousand times yes. How can God do a new thing in your life with an outdated strategy? God isn’t asking us to have all the answers, He is asking us to stop being so afraid of rejection that we mislabel His direction and shun it as that. God has already accepted you. He has already committed to never leave or forsake you. Why then, do you shrink back and cringe whenever He tries to take your old ways, old wine, old strategy and redirect it into something new? If you’re anything like me, it’s because you come into God’s presence trying to be perfect and have all the answers. When He gently takes that, puts it aside and draws me close I let my bruised pride, the trauma of past rejection and the fear that He may change His mind about me do the talking.

God isn’t calling us not to take initiative, He is calling us to trust Him enough to say, “No,” to the ideas, plans and strategies we bring to him. His no isn’t a rejection, it’s redirection. When we understand this and let it sink to our core, we can come to God with no reservations and it’s in this space that our seed coat begins to crack open and fall away.

Put aside your pride.

Grief, true grief, doesn’t have pride. If you’ve ever seen someone express the pain of deep grief you know. Perhaps that person was you. The pain crosses the lines from emotional to physical as the body fails to cope with the weight of it, giving out to gravity and releasing a sound so piercing that it calls others to respond in kind. If God is going to use your grief to bring out the tender seed of who you are, you have to stop holding on to pride. This may mean allowing yourself to fall apart in His presence and the presence of a trusted loved one. It may mean accepting that you need help and humbling yourself enough to ask for it. It’s the only way you can fully absorb the love of God that leads to the falling away of the tough exteriors life and the world have forced onto our hearts.

Embrace grief.

Do you see grief as good? Being able to grieve is God’s way of making it possible for us to experience grief-inducing situations and come out of them better on the other side. This is nothing short of a miracle. The gift of grief allows God to turn those situations around for our good and His glory. I know, it’s so hard to understand and even accept when I’m saying if you’re in the middle of grief. My sincere prayer is that you can lift your head long enough to see the love in His eyes and that maybe not today, but one day soon, you’ll embrace the miracle that makes it possible for us to be called blessed because we mourn… grief.

Heavenly Father, help us understand the good that is lovingly placed on the inside of the life-giving process of grief. Help us to embrace the grief as a catalyst for what You’re doing in our lives. Help us to understand, without a shadow of a doubt, that though You are incapable of inflicting pain on us, You will use it and have the final say as we go through it. Lord, help us to learn how to grieve well. Help us allow grief to strip down the rough exterior coats of pride, rejection, perfectionism, comparison, past trauma and anything else that has covered the seed of us that you placed inside of us in the secret place. May we receive and absorb your love until it breaks us open in your presence and may we rise to our feet to walk confidently in the fruitfulness You are calling us to. In Jesus’ name, amen.