Grief Myths

Pastor Janine leaving Zion leaves many of us grieving, or anticipating grief. You may know other changes and losses these days—not to mention the heartbreak of the world.

Grief is not a problem to solve but a mystery to enter. From the smallest to the most profound losses, the bleak depths are full, not just of suffering and pain, but also of sweetness, healing, and love. Paul wrote,

“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters...so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1st Thessalonians 4).

So that you may find hope in the midst of your grief, let’s bust some myths about grief. There are many! Mirabai Starr named these four.

Starr is a teacher and author. Her book, Caravan of No Despair: A Memoir of Loss and Transformation, reflects on her daughter’s death 15 years ago in a car accident. I commend to you her free four-day online event next week:

“Unraveling the Myths of Grief”
www.wildheart.space/griefmyths

In it she will go into more depth on these myths. I’ll simply reflect on them in my own words.

Myth 1: “There is a “right” and “wrong” way to grieve”

Grief is wild, more like a lion than a house cat. Grief is like the ocean in a storm or a river during flood. It’s like the weather. By its nature, it is beyond our control. It does not care about our timelines or stages. There may be common experience or emotions in the landscape of grief, but grief drags us where it wants when it wants, haphazardly, rudely.

Grief is love, and just as every love is different, every grief is different. Every person is different. You’re going to handle your griefs differently, than I will. You’re going to handle this grief differently than that grief. 

Labels like “right” or “wrong” are doomed efforts to control the uncontrollable or foolhardy denials of who we really are and what this love really meant to us, or both.

Myth 2: “My personal losses and grief for the world are in competition”

Comparison and competition can poison us in the best of times. Even more so in grief. If it is real for you, it is real. It’s okay to feel it, and it’s okay to express it.

Grief is love, and God created us with an amazing capacity to love a wide-range of people, creatures, places, and things. Right now I’m grieving those now-past days when my kids would climb into my lap and snuggle. And the dying tree I watch from my window. God loves the whole world and grieves every sparrow that falls from the sky. Every grief of every person in all times and places is linked because of God’s great love. Our little griefs are tidepools of the one great ocean of grief. We can honor our own love and grief and that of the world at the same time, because they are truly one.

Myth 3: "Spiritual people don’t grieve"

Hogwash, truly. Some Christians misquote Paul as saying, “Do not grieve,” when he’s actually saying the opposite: “Do grieve!” Grief is love, and if you don’t grieve, that means you have not loved. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love. “Faith, hope, and love abide,” said Paul, “and the greatest of these is love.” God is love, and the cross is the bottomless well of God’s grief. Jesus wept. Faithful people grieve, because grief is love.

Myth 4: "Loss is the end of the story"

As resurrection people, perhaps this myth is the easiest to dismiss. There truly is no skipping what’s hard and painful. (To try in the name of faith is called “spiritual bypass”—it doesn’t end well!) We must, as Jesus asks of us, take up the cross of our grief and follow. And where Jesus leads is through and beyond loss, to the restoration, healing, and joy. Jesus lives, and life will return. The days of ashes will end. This too shall pass.

“If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay” (Habakkuk 2).