Recently, I celebrated the four year anniversary of my dad’s death. The events surrounding his death are surreal to this day. It all started while I was in the middle of preaching camps across the nation. I was suffering for Jesus in beautiful Montana, where this particular camp was situated at the base of Glacier Park. My speaker’s quarters was a cabin next to a gorgeous river. Trust me, not all quarters are like this! However, I will never forget texting my dad back and forth from that special cabin. I distinctly remember thinking, “Wow, my dad and I seem to be getting close in this season in my life.” It wasnt that anything bad had every happened between us. He was a great dad and I was a typical boy and teenager growing up. However, he grew up in an alcoholic home and so did I-as my mom battled alcoholism during my childhood. If you know anything at all about this disease, you will know that children of alcoholics don’t naturally excel in emotional intimacy. My dad and I, though we spent tons of time together, never crossed certain emotional bridges. But it seemed as though we were on the verge of doing so later in my adult life as we texted each other(of all things) while I was 1000 miles away peering at a flowing river that I’m sure he would have loved to fish in. I walked to the cafeteria, looking at my text messages, overwhelmed with gratitude for what was taking place.
Oddly enough, ironically enough(or whatever term you wish to use) that would all change two weeks later while I was at a camp in Oklahoma. My mom called on Monday saying that my dad, who battled severe pancreatitis from ancient orange exposure in Vietnam, was back in the hospital. He had been hospitalized on many occasions but according to my mother, “this time was different.” And sure enough, by Wednesday morning my dad had taken a turn for the worse. I spoke to him that morning(knowing that this could be last time) and told him that I loved him. By that afternoon he was virtually on life support and I was on an emergency flight home to hold his hand as we took him off of life support.
Leaving the hospital that night, I remember thinking, “God, why? It was just starting to get good?”
I’m not sure if you have recently loss somebody or if you have ever asked “why?” Both will take place in your life. Whether it be the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, or even the death of a dream, we will all battle disappointment. And if we are honest with ourselves, we have already asked “why” on one occasion in our journey with the Lord. And guess what? We are likely to ask it again! This list of 3 things are three things I must remind myself of as 5 ways I deal with loss. It all started in a prayer time where I sensed the Holy Spirit say, “My grace is bigger than your grief.” As you read through this short list, may you hear the Holy Spirit say the same to you!
- I must remember that God often answers “why” with “who”.
It isn’t that He doesn’t have answers. And from time to time in certain seasons, God can most definitely give us wisdom that answers some of our deepest “whys.” However, one thing is for sure-He will always answer why with who–who He is in the midst of our most honest, heartfelt whys.
When I first started traveling and preaching, I preached for an older couple I really liked. In the midst of conversation over dinner, I learned that early in their life, they lost a little boy due to a tragic car accident in the parking lot of the church they pastored. I was dumb founded, not just because of the nature of the incident, but because of the peace they had when communicating the story. Of course they were older now and had a lot of life under the belt since that tragic loss. But their peace was marked by a powerful truth this dear woman of God shared with me. She said, “Mike, you never know the grace available to you until you need it.” As a parent of young kids at the time, that truth resounded through my soul and reminded me, God’s who is always bigger than my why!
- His presence on the inside, and therefore His grace, is ultimately bigger than my pain. After all, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is on the inside of me. That means that as I face any grave in my life, I have the Spirit of God within me that ultimately overcame any, and every, grave. The release of this grace, in the midst of the grave, is something I only experience when and as I need it. And the experience of it, must like the resurrection of Christ, is nothing less than supernatural. And that same grace enables me to experience the peace that surpasses all understanding and the joy that comes in the mourning. He is indeed the resurrected King, the Prince of Peace, the friend who sticks closer than a brother, and through His presence is the one who turns my mourning into dancing. He is the “who” that is bigger than my “why.” And it isn’t that I will not experience heart wrenching grief, but this very grief can point me toward the experience of a much bigger grace.
- I make a decision to turn a loss into a gain.
Can I return to the story of my dad for a moment? About a year before I died, I was preaching for another pastor who told me about a book his wife was reading. It turns out that, she too, was an adult child of an alcoholic. This was not in the midst of a deep conversation. It was quite the opposite scenario in fact. He was ripping through this story to make a point about something else, but something He said God used to hit me across the head with a 2×4 of revelation. (It’s really cool how God can use the everyday stuff of our life to connect the dots for us!) He very quickly rehearsed the punchline of this book by saying, kids of alcoholics grow up with the mantra, “don’t talk, don’t trust, and don’t feel.” He then moved on to the next topic but the Holy Spirit was dialing me up in the moment. I literally had the thought, “He just nailed my mantra!” And I could see how that was also the storyline of my own father.
Truthfully, that moment in the truck with that pastor had a lot to do with the efforts I made to become transparent and vulnerable with my own father. He recripricated for sure, and that is why it came to such a meaningful moment outside of that cabin in Montana. When he died, I had a choice to make. I could either wallow in, “It was just starting to get good” OR, I could continue to take my new found determination for emotional connection and direct it toward others-namely my own children! In other words, I could turn this loss into a huge gain by ensuring that I would not perpetuate my emotional makeup into the dynamics with my own children. I can say, with great joy, I have a loooong way to go still, but my dad’s loss has been a catalyst for great gain with my own boys.
And here is another gain I made-in the relationship I have with my mother. The truth is, during that special season(as short as it was) with my dad, my mom and I were not on the closest grounds. To this day, we are closer than we have been in a long long time, and I can only see it getting even better. You know why? Because my mom and I both have made a choice–let’s allow God to bring gain to our loss. It’s a tough choice to make but it is very freeing to realize that life can spring forth from loss if we allow it to!
- I must remember that time is my best friend, and sometimes my worst friend, when it comes to dealing with grief.
Let’s face it, when dealing with grief, time is a funny monkey. When tragedy or loss first hits, it seems like time stands still and we can not fathom ever being able to move on from the depths of pain we feel in that moment and in that season. But then as time stretches on, if we have dealt with grief in a healthy way, things do get easier. And then “wam!”, someone says something or you see a picture on Facebook that all of the sudden causes the waves of grief to hit you again! I can relate to this first hand as I found myself experiencing deep moments of grief two years after my dad died.
These experiences took me back to a couple of years earlier when, once again, I was preaching a camp in Wisconsin and spending time with a ministry leader who just loss a little girl to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The hurt and disbelief were still very, very real. But he shared with me an example that a counselor told him that grief is like a rock in a tire. In the moment of your loss, that tire is absolutely deflated and the grief steers the direction of your mood as easy as a car out of alignment can steer you into a ditch. But after much time, it isn’t that the rock in the tire goes away, it’s that slowly the tire(your emotional state) begins to inflate again. You can still feel the grief, but eventually the tire becomes greater than the rock, and emotionally you are able to stay in alignment much easier.
Whether you can relate to the tire example or not, the reality is that grief comes in like waves at the oddest of times. When the loss first happens, the waves are huge, crash over you, and make you feel like you are drowning. Over time, the waves become smaller and smaller. There will be times when a tidal wave hits you out of nowhere, but over time, the waves will recede, become less frequent, and eventually will no longer have the same “crash affect” on your emotional life. But the key to this is time! I hate the religious cliches we all hear when we suffer loss-but the phrase “give it some time” is certainly true. At least it has been for me.
These three reminders are just a starting point when it comes to dealing with grief. But they’ve helped me process my own loss. My prayer for you, if you are in a season of loss in any way, is that you will sense the who in the midst of the why, become determined to turn your loss into gain, and give yourself some time!