A Heart to Heart with Grief
Last week, Pastor Matt wrote concerning the reality of grief. There was a thought mentioned in his blog post I will expound upon which stated, “We can try our best to circumvent it, to avoid it, or maybe even escape from it but it’s a constant pursuer and always surfaces.” Grief does not have an expiration date. Grief can approach without warning. Grief will haunt us if we refuse a heart to heart with it.
Watchman Nee, the early 20th century Chinese church leader said, “To keep our hand on the plow while wiping away our tears – that is Christianity!” At first glance, this quote seemingly compartmentalizes grief apart from our faith. However, the point of this quote is the exact opposite. Notice the language of Watchman, he says “hand” not “hands.” The work of our faith includes the process of grief, it is an aspect of our faithful work; we work diligently with one hand on the plow while we work within the realities of a fallen world in recognizing the honesty of our tears.
If I’m completely honest there have been many times where tears are running down my face in the midst of a hard day's work that has gone unrecognized. Perhaps even foolishly my tears were mislabeled for sweat from my hard work, tears resulting from a lack of sleep, or tears of empathy for another. Many times I have ignored the fact that these were tears of my grief.
In the summer of 2015 during a time of prayer with my wife I began weeping. The Holy Spirit was revealing something new to me; He was showing me that I needed to grieve. For nearly 13 years I attempted to bury deep the grief I felt surrounding my battle with stage III testicular cancer. The reasons for hiding my grief are many, but not one justifiable; and more importantly, not a single reason for my grief hiding was a desire God wanted for me. He wanted much more; God wanted me to grieve.
Only because of the grace of God, 13 years later sitting on a couch with my wife, He helped me grieve these things: being surprised with cancer at the age of 21, painful misdiagnosis, countless medical tests, 3 surgeries, loss of a reproductive organ, news of metastasis to my lymph nodes, chemotherapy, the loneliness of hours alone during chemotherapy, the weekly shot of bleomycin for 3 months that left me with flu like side effects, news of metastasis to my lungs, exhaustion from hospital stays, complicated college years with cancer, and more.
What a blessing it was to grieve these things. In those moments God was faithful to reveal that this process of grief is good. Not only is grieving good, but it is a part of faithful Christian work. Grief is not meant to be peripheral; grief is real and not meant to be ignored. To keep our hand on the plow of Christian work and service includes the process of wiping tears of grief. Having both hands on the plow exclusively all the time is to ignore a portion of not only who we are as people made in God’s image, but also an unhealthy attempt to reject reality.
This week, I’d like for you to prayerfully consider these three questions: 1) Are there any circumstances that you need to grieve? 2) Are there tears that have gone unrecognized or mislabeled? 3) How can I trust in the Holy Spirit to grieve where it’s difficult?
Submitted by: Mikey Conrad