Blessed are those who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.
Matthew 5
Losing someone you love is devastating
because we have lost something we can never replace.
You can experience feelings of anger, bewilderment, disbelief, guilt and regret. Some of us feel nothing but numbness. You may lose the ability to cry and that is confusing because everyone else around you is crying... and sometimes it almost seems that everyone else is coping so much better than you are.
Some people have terrifying thoughts - some too terrifying to verbalise - they fear their own death, a further loss in the family, a death of a friend. Some people think unspeakably morbid thoughts and end up beating themselves up over them. The fact of the matter is this, irrational thoughts abound when we grieve. We feel like our lives will never be the same. Some go as far as thinking their own lives are also over.
Grief cannot be compared.
I lost my Father in 1987 and my Mother in 2006. My Mother bore the illness Alzheimers for eight years and my Father lost his battle with cancer. When he died, I thought my world had ended. I became physically ill and even developed symptoms my Father had. I did not realise how ill through grief I was until I trained as a bereavement counsellor in 1991. I decided to learn how to help the grieving because I found when I had the need for help, not only was support difficult to find, but after a year or so people thought I needed to 'get on with it' and get over it. To lose someone through years of illness is often thought of as a blessed release. Well, I see it as a painful loss whatever the circumstances. No-one should be made to feel guilty about their feelings because if you have them, they are real. The worst thing is when people measure your grief by theirs. "I was ok after six months... It is sad but life goes on... well, we have just got to plod on really...get back to normality..."
The worst thing is when we feel God has abandoned us.
If you are feeling like this, I do not want to say anything to try to make you feel better at this time because for some people reassurance about God's love doesn't help. I simply want you to know I will listen, and if you DO feel abandoned by God, I can pray for comfort until you are able to do so yourself.
God is with you but if you feel otherwise He will understand. He expects you to feel anger and pain, after all it is God who taught us to love completely and without any restriction. It is God who taught us to love each other as we love ourselves. It makes sense we will hurt this much if we loved to the extent He wanted us to.
Please use the contact form and email me. I cannot promise to make your hurt disappear, but I will promise to listen to you and pray for you.