Coming up over next few weeks I will be speaking on a couple of occasions. One is at a local college and one will be in church. Obviously the one in church will take on a more Biblical approach. However the concept for both, I think, unless things change will be about or concerning the step in the grief process related to “acceptance.”
At the college the title of the presentation is “How Do You Mend A Broken Heart - Part 2.” The thought of really focusing in on the last stage of grief as acceptance has been on my mind since the summer. Perhaps even before a date was set.
Just last week I was asked to speak on this coming Sunday at Middletown AOG. Yesterday as I began to think about what I would speak on the passage from Phil 3.7-14 comes to mind. The passage begins by talking about “loss” and in verse 8 it mentions “gain.” In verses 12-14 the language (from the NIV) speaks of. “I press on to take hold of, “forgetting” and again “press(ing) on.”
I find it interesting in that as I have learned to appreciate the grieving process at the stage of acceptance, it seems that the main and most difficult task to do is to be willing to “let go” of the thing that is already lost or gone. Though the object is gone, we continue to hold on. The fear that motivates us is that we will forget the loved one. That they will slip away from us as if they never existed.
The process is that we start out by continuing to hold on though the loss is defined as gone. In effect there is nothing left to hold on to. But as we empty our grip we are then in a position to take hold. For actually the relationship to the one lost is ready to take on a new dimension of relationship to our lives. We find that the loved one did not really leave us at all. I found this as being true with the loss of my father.
We often get real attached to the person of our loss meaning the fleshy or physical part. I read in a paper about a gentleman who continues to go day by day to the graveside of his deceased wife. When asked why does he go he says that he knows that the real person he had been married to is not there but that “the hand he use to dance with” is there.
My contention is that our bodies are the containers. The real gift that those we love give us is the time and attention and the love that they gave us while we were alive. It was the deposits and the investments that they gave us while they were living. To use the analogy of a Christmas present, we keep the gift and we discard the wrapping and the box that the gift came in. As I think back and remember my father, I not only remember the times that we had together but more and more I remember the lessons that he taught me and the insights that he gave me. I remember them even more that I have children that I have beeen raising. I find myself saying a lot of things that my father used to say. And sometimes I think that he is actually closer to me now than he was when he was alive in the flesh.
Certainly this is true for Christ. Christ could not be fully appreciated until after His death, burial and resurrection. Its his words and his teachings that do mean so much to us. And of course if we believe in Christ we realize that these separations are only temporary.
But even more this line of thinking takes on a much deeper meaning to me. It is one of grand themes that I think are in the Bible. To be direct about it, sometimes in life we have a tendency to hold on to things a lot longer then what we should be doing. I think of a fighter pilot, which is what for a long time; I wanted to be when I grew up. There is a thing among fighter pilots known as “target fixation” if I am not mistaken. This would be particularly true of a fighter pilot in one of these supersonic jet planes. That at the point of release of the weapon it is time for the pilot to immediately turn his attention back to flying his aircraft rather than watching to see if the weapon hits the target.
From a Biblical standpoint, I am impressed by the story of the Exodus. Israel was released from captivity in Egypt after four hundred years of slavery and of harsh labor. And it says that God brought them out by a mighty hand and delivered them. The problem however was not their coming out but their coming to the land of promise.
I find that we often consider that the two concepts are one and automatic. As soon as we come out of one thing we automatically enter in to something else. But, for humans, we have the ability to linger right at the door way of having come out but not yet willing to enter in. As a result, God waited for a whole generation (40yrs) for the one generation to die off so that he could bring the next generation into the promise. Actually in forty years it was more like two generations had to die off before those who were 2o yrs old and young to grow up and to enter in. For they did not seem to have that strong memory of Egypt pulling at them to want to go back.
For the older generations the pull of what they knew was stronger than the promise of a better life ahead of them. Compare Deut. 4.37-38 and Deut 6.23. It is clear that God’s purpose was not just to bring them out. He brought them out in order to bring them in.
In the 13th and 14th chapters of the Book of Numbers we see that God had a very difficult time with bringing Israel into their promised land. They did not believe. They would not trust God. They kept holding on to the land of bondage and would not let go. They lacked faith that the same God that took them out of a bad land could settle them safely in a good land. In Num. 14.15-16 says: “if you put these people to death all at one time, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath, so he slaughtered the in the desert’.”
When I think of grief process and of recovery and even of a life of faith, this principle continues to speak to me. Bringing people out of distress is only half of what God is willing and wanting to do. The other part of it is to bring us in to what God has already promised us “on oath.”