How Can I Deal with Grief?
John Redhead
July 1, 1983
Several years ago a group of doctors known as neuropsychiatrists met for their annual session. It was my pleasure to be present and one of the papers read was entitled "Grief Reaction." It interested me to know that these doctors were concerned with what happens to a member of the family when the shock of bereavement strikes, and I felt that here was a theme to which a minister might well give thought. So our topic has to do with the problem of grief.
It is a somber subject of course. There is a line in Tennyson's "In Memoriam,"
Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break
and who knows when you may be forced to face the burden of sudden bereavement? Moreover, it is possible that there are those who do not see the beauty of this day because past grief shuts out the sunshine. In looking for light upon our darkness we go back to a text from our Lord: "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).
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Christ wants us to learn to accept grief as one of the facts of life. There is a false way of looking at things which would have us believe that life is all sweetness and light, and that any trouble which intrudes upon our happiness is not real and has no place in the scheme of things. But our Lord could not be hoodwinked by any such juggling of the truth. He looked the facts in the face and he saw that in the kind of world in which we live trouble is bound to come. He said it as plainly as words can make it: "In the world we shall have tribulation"-period. There is no way you can shuffle the cards and deal it out. It is there, and it is there to stay; and the part of wisdom is to see it, and to accept it, and to make up your mind calmly that grief is bound to come.
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