One Woman’s Journey from Grief to Recovery

By Tammy Fleming (Kiev, Ukraine)

We are all familiar with the idea that Jesus suffered and died to save us from our sins on the cross. Have you ever thought about all the different kinds of suffering Jesus went through, even before he began his ministry at the age of 30?

I often think about the fact that he must have lost his father at some point before then. Joseph must have died, or else we would have read about him in Matthew 12:46-47, the episode where Jesus’ mother and brothers thought he had lost his mind and came to “take charge” of him. No father figure there. By the time Jesus was in his 20s, any other kids who had grown up with him would have been married and begun having their own families. Watching them, he must have felt sad about the lost hopes, dreams, and expectations that would have been so natural for him to have had for himself.

How many weddings of his friends had he attended before the wedding in Cana where Jesus turns the water into wine in John chapter two?  At what age did it sink in that he was the Messiah, destined for rejection, suffering, and an untimely violent death? (Luke 24:44) How many sleepless nights did he have, thinking about when and how and why he was destined to die? He surely experienced a loss of trust and a loss of idealism: the same teachers and religious leaders, at whose feet he sat learning as a young teenager, were the ones who orchestrated his torture and death at age 33.

The book of Hebrews (Heb. 2:14, 4:15) teaches that Jesus is able to empathize with whatever emotional struggle we may go through in life. The book of Psalms contains descriptions and examples of God’s people expressing the entire gamut of human emotion. Sometimes, in the effort to be “good Christians” as we in good conscience try to deny ourselves to follow Jesus, we can make the mistake of stuffing all our negative emotions. Sometimes we don’t allow ourselves ever to think about them. Other times we do nothing but think about them. It can be hard to know where or how to tell the truth about how badly we really feel in dark times of great struggle and testing.

Sometimes the church can stop feeling like a safe place, when the only tools we have to comfort one another in times of tragedy are to tell each other,  “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay,” or “God doesn’t test us beyond what we can handle,”  or worst of all, “Maybe you committed some sin and God is punishing you.”  Jesus knew only to tell his disciples the truth they could handle at the moment. He met them where they were. He knew when to speak and when to be silent (Mark 4:33, Ecclesiastes 3:7).  I have made all of these mistakes in trying to comfort the people I love most.

For some of us, devastating losses begin early in life. For others, it is not until one of our grandparents or parents dies that we are faced with the incredible pain of the loss of someone who has always been there – and suddenly they are gone. Grief catches up with all of us sooner or later.

My own story is that by the time I was 24 I had buried both of my parents, two uncles and the only grandparent I knew.  Five classmates – whose names I’d known since kindergarten, kids who sat at desks in the same rooms with me for ten years — died in various terrible and unexpected ways in high school; and a college classmate ended her life by suicide.

Death, however, isn’t the only thing that causes grief. There’s divorce. There’s betrayal. There’s disappointment. There are hopes, dreams, and expectations that just don’t get fulfilled the way we expected. More than 40 different life events commonly cause us to grieve¹. I see examples of all of these in the Bible. Lately they jump out at me from the pages of both Old and New Testaments as I read – where I just hadn’t noticed them before.

I had heard of The Grief Recovery Method® (www.griefrecoverymethod.com) for years -- first, through trained Grief Recovery Method® Specialists who were members of our church in Los Angeles. We offered the program regularly in our region, but I never felt a need to go through it myself.  Later, I heard of it through Teresa Ferguson, a dear friend and wife of Elder/Evangelist/Author Gordon Ferguson, whom I have long loved and respected. I think she recommended The Grief Recovery Handbook to me in three separate conversations over a period of several years before I went and bought it and actually read it. When I finally did, I was riveted. I knew right away that I had something very special in my hands. Though the book purposely does not quote from or refer to the Bible, I immediately understood that the authors had based their practical working principles on years of humbly observing God’s universal spiritual truths in action. They learned what works and what doesn’t work to heal the hearts of people dealing with all kinds of loss.

Daniel 2:21b-22 reads,

                He gives wisdom to the wise.

                And knowledge to the discerning.

                He reveals deep and hidden things;

                He knows what lies in darkness.

Our hearts can be pretty dark places sometimes.

When I finally did decide to read The Grief Recovery Handbook, I had just made an international move -- from Los Angeles, California, to Birmingham, England. It was my fifth trans-Atlantic move. For me, moving is never easy. Each time I’ve had to move, it feels almost as though one of my parents has died again. It’s that hard for me. As we settled into our new home in England, I began to meet the people in the churches there and to get to know them. Listening to their personal stories, I heard so much disappointment, so much sadness and disillusionment, so many regrets, so much pain, so much loss. That word resonated as the best description for the many reasons for emotional suffering in different people's hearts. I, of course, was feeling sad myself, having moved away (again) from my home country and culture and language and friends.

And so, I invited a dear friend and sister in the church to take a weekend retreat away and go through The Grief Recovery Handbook together. We made a reservation for the two of us at a hotel in the country. We went off, each to our own private place to sit and read and do our homework for each exercise in the book, and then we came back together for meals, and to share with one another, and to listen to one another, as the book instructs. 

I had thought that my most acute need was going to be to process the ocean of emotions stirred up and connected to my recent move. To my great surprise, as I began working through the exercises in the book, I realized that there was something deeper and much more pressing that was bringing a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes, as I read and worked through the first exercises in the book. My daughter had just moved out and gone to University. It had not occurred to me that my relationship with her could be the biggest source of sadness in my life at that time, because there were so many things in our relationship that were actually quite good right at that point!

And yet – I couldn’t deny that it felt like I had a knife in my heart as I took time to acknowledge the things I had regrets about. I hadn’t realized I was carrying so many painful thoughts deep down and buried. I routinely focused on the happy parts of our relationship and tried hard to ignore the bad parts – isn’t that what Christians are supposed to do? So what was this acute pain that kept screaming for my attention, as I worked through the exercises in the book?

I was shocked, as I followed the instructions of the homework exercise. I drew the overall picture of our relationship and saw on the paper much more sadness and regret in my relationship with my daughter than I expected to see.  It was an amazing process of discovery. I felt God working to open my eyes to the secrets of my own heart (Psalm 44:21), helping me grow in humility and self-awareness. I felt like I had been given a practical tool to help me bring some painful things, which I myself could not see, up “out of darkness and into his wonderful light” (1 John 1: 5-10).

My friend and I completed the Grief Recovery Method® with one another that weekend. I started giving copies of the book away to people as often as I could. It became a tool that I used often in my ministry with both Christians and people who came to us seeking God, but with so much unresolved pain in their hearts that they couldn’t really hear or trust God at first. Recently I saw this in Exodus chapter six, when, after the Israelites’ hopes had been aroused by God’s personal intervention, with Moses and Aaron arriving on the scene after 400 years of slavery and heroically confronting Pharaoh, life got worse instead of better. The Egyptians clamped down even harder on the Israelite slaves: “You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks.” (Ex 5:18 NIV) Moses is refreshingly honest with God in prayer after this: “…ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people and you have not rescued your people at all!” (Ex 5:23 NIV) Then the Lord turns the spotlight fully on himself in conversation with Moses: Now you will see miracles, he says. Just wait until you see what I am about to do! I have heard you! I am coming!  I, the Lord, I am The One! I will redeem you, I will take you as my own, I will be your God! I will rescue you, I will deliver you! I will save you and take you to the promised land as my own beloved possession! – This is so exciting! God the Creator, the One and Only, is moving! Is near! Is about to save and deliver, for real. 400 years of horrible slavery and racism is about to END. They are on the brink of one of the most amazing miraculous rescues in all of human history, if not The Greatest. And then comes Exodus 6:9: “Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him [could not hear him?] because of their discouragement and cruel bondage.” Exactly. Sometimes I can’t hear good news or God’s righteous truth either.

Sometimes grief and loss make their unwelcome entrance very early in life. Certainly by the time any of us reaches middle age, we have accumulated a heavy load of regrets, and things that we wish could have turned out differently. All of those disappointments affect us. With only the best of intentions, we try to apply Christian principles to the suffering heart: “God is in control,” we say. “He won’t test us beyond what we can bear.” Sometimes, those rational facts are a comfort to the griever. Sometimes, though, even though God’s word is always true, our human suffering is not able to hear those words in particular as being helpful or comforting. I believe that’s why Jesus only told his disciples as much as they could handle hearing (Mark 4:33); I believe that’s why Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 teaches us that God has made us in such a way that we need to make time for very different kinds of activities: there’s a time to speak, and there’s a time to be silent. Job’s friends had it right at first, when they sat silently with their suffering friend. Everything went bad when they opened their mouths and began to offer advice and tried to fix him. He was grieving. It was time to be silent, to listen, to mourn.

In my mid-40s, I began to experience a smorgasbord of all the classic pre-menopausal symptoms. Usually an energetic, positive person, I became depressed and was physically exhausted 100% of the time. I had absolutely no joy in anything in life. I couldn’t concentrate. I slept horribly.  I read the same verse in the Bible 20 times in the morning and nothing stuck in my head. I felt like a failure at absolutely everything I touched. I regularly asked God to just take me away and the world would certainly be better for it. I was sick three years in a row with pneumonia – the first year it put me in bed for five weeks. Thank God for my sisters in the church who supported me through that time and alerted me to the fact that I was very likely premenopausal. Eventually I found a good doctor who helped me with my physical symptoms (he told me to sleep right, eat right, exercise right!). After about 4 years of finally mastering those simple-but-really-hard changes, I felt my sense of well-being return. (That, and a tiny little dose every day for a while of natural progesterone cream.²) “Whew, I’m back,” I remember thinking to myself one day. I now believe that the symptoms I experienced back then were a lot worse, and went on a lot longer than they needed to, because I was carrying so much unresolved grief in my heart.

Grief is cumulative. It stacks up inside if we don’t deal with it. Losses, if we don’t process them properly, get worse, not better with time. God created us with a need for connection. It is in relationship with him and with one another that we heal. He made us in such a way that we need to speak aloud our pain. Psalm 62 teaches us to pour out our hearts to God, because that is where we find healing. It is no wonder that we are taught to confess our sins, and even our temptations. We see this healthy example in the Bible in the psalms of lament and the book of Lamentations. Nowhere does God rebuke Jeremiah for speaking to him so honestly and venting all of his emotional pain in prayer. God made us in such a way – introvert and extrovert – that we must speak out, speak aloud, pray aloud, breathe out, give voice to what troubles us in our heart. God alone can take whatever we dish out. The people around us are not so trustworthy. Sometimes it’s hard to find a safe place, even in the church, where we can be honest and authentic. Sadly, sometimes our pain and disappointment is so connected to God, or to relationships in the church, we can withdraw and stop talking to him, and to one another.

Don’t let that happen to you. The only way back to intimacy with God, or in any relationship, is to go directly through the conflict.³ Fight for what’s right. Get your time with God no matter what. Pray on the phone with someone. Pray while you exercise. Write a letter to God if you can’t concentrate, or if you have a long commute to work. Pray out loud in the car. Get out of the house. Get on your knees. Pray the words of the Bible out loud. Find the time REGULARLY.

Your heart is so worth it!

The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:5b-7 NIV

Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been plagued! I have been punished every morning! … When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God. Then I understood… Psalm 73: 13-17 NIV (exclamation points added)

I am laid low in the dust; preserve my life according to your word. I recounted my ways (I told God everything that happened, everything I was thinking and feeling) and you answered me; teach me your decrees (teach me your word). Let me understand the teaching of your precepts (your word), then I will meditate* on your wonders. My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word. Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me through your law (your word); I have chosen the way of truth. I have set my heart on your laws (on your word); I hold fast to your statutes (to your word) O Lord; do not let me be put to shame. I run in the path of your commands, (of your word) for you have set my heart free!  Psalm 119:28-32 NIV. (italics and the last exclamation point are mine)

¹John W. James and Russell Friedman, The Grief Recovery Handbook (20^th Anniversary Expanded Edition) (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 1

²The best book I’ve found about the physical and emotional changes in a woman’s body from about age 35 to menopause and beyond (I read it almost as much as my Bible in my 40’s): What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Premenopause by Dr. John Lee. Also by Lee: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause

³ Joe Beam, founder of Family Dynamics www.marriagedynamics.com

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If you liked this article, you might like Rolan Monje’s book,  Into the Psalms from ipi publishers: https://ipibooks.ecwid.com/#!/Into-the-Psalms/p/64183324

www.tammytaxterfleming.com, tammyfleming@griefrecoveryforyou