When You Lose What You Love

Last week, a friend mine was killed by arm robbers. He has three children. The news of his death was a surprise to me because he happened to be the nicest person I have ever met. I cried for two days asking God why he had to die like that. His death prompted me to write this article.
To me when you lose what you love, you go through 5 stages:

• Denial. No it can’t be happening .
• Anger. God why are you permitting this?
• Bargaining. Please make it go away
• Depression,Silence and Withdrawal
• Acceptance.

Wether it is the loss of a child, a marriage, a job, your health etc. when you turn to God, He will give you the grace to embrace it, grieve it, express it, release it and go on to become stronger.Sometimes we seek quick relief by releasing it before we have gone through these stages. That is because we fear the process.

We have been taught that any show of emotion is a show of weakness, so we stuff it. But we only stuff it into our emotional garbage can, then spend all our time and energy sitting on the lid, trying to keep the contents from spilling out.

You must be willing to forgive, but until you come to grips with the enmity of your loss, including any injustice of what was done to you, you are not ready to forgive.When you rush to forgive, you forgive only in part and you are release only in part.

Are you running from pain today? Are you trading it in prematurely for some other feeling? Draw near unto God and your grief will turn to joy and no one will take it away.