Growing Through Grief -- By: Diane Bringgold Brown

Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 04:1 (Winter 1990)
Article: Growing Through Grief
Author: Diane Bringgold Brown


Growing Through Grief

Diane Bringgold Brown

Among the wider goals of Christians for Biblical Equality is offering our members support in facing crises common to our equal humanity. In the following adaptation of her workshop at the summer ‘89 conference, Diane Bringgold Brown helps us understand the grieving process as she presents a Christian approach to coping with loss.

Our biblical text is Matthew 5:4: “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted”, and in the light of that text we will discuss the following questions:

1. Should Christians grieve?

2. What is grief?

3. What are some of the stages of grief?

4. Moving forward into new life (growing through grief)

5. How can we help?

Should Christians grieve? Yes. In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount as recorded by Matthew, we hear Jesus say to his followers, “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.” Blessed are those who mourn (hoi pentountes). The Greek implies active lamenting, wailing, crying. In the vernacular we might say, “Blessed are those who really express their grief for they shall be comforted.

In I Thessalonians 4:13-14 Paul writes, “Brothers (and sisters) we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep or to grieve like the rest of men (and women) who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.” We are nor to grieve as those who have no hope but we must grieve, for grief is a natural response to loss.

We normally think of grief primarily as a response to the death of a loved one but it can be occasioned by the loss of anything that is meaningful to us. However, we cannot be comforted by God unless we are willing to enter into our grief and to be honest about the emotions we experience.

Let’s look at the types of loss which cause us to feel grief. Each type of loss can itself occasion grief, and when a family member or a significant person in our life dies, we often experience several types of loss at once.

1. Material loss can cause grief. The loss of an heirloom or something given us by a friend which may have little value in itself but has important emotional meaning: The loss of a camera on a trip; decreased income when one is widowed or divorced; and perhaps the most profound, the loss of everything in a fire or natural disaster. As Christians we may feel it inappropriate to grieve over lost “things”, but grief is a natural response even to this t...

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