Learning to Grieve Life’s Losses

In Ecclesiastes 3:1, and 4, I read “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens . . . a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” (NIV)

Life is tough. The world is broken, and nothing works perfectly. My own body doesn’t work perfectly, the weather doesn’t work perfectly, the economy doesn’t work perfectly, and no relationship works perfectly. Life is full of losses.

I need to learn to rise above life’s inevitable losses. To do so, I need to understand a couple of truths that will give me a better perspective.

First, God doesn’t expect me to be happy all the time.

There is this myth that Christians should be always smiling, always happy, always cheerful.

Today’s verse reminds me, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens . . . a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4 NIV).

Sometimes the only appropriate, logical response to life is grief. What I’m learning from God’s Word is that I should grieve over my losses, including my disappointments, unmet expectations, my sin, the suffering in the world, and even my friends who are spiritually lost. God doesn’t expect me to be happy all the time. In fact, he wants me to be intentional in my grief.

Second, grief is essential to my health.

If I never grieve over anything, it means one of three things: I’m possibly out of touch with reality, my own emotions, or I don’t love. When I love and I see sad things, grief is a natural response.

Grief is a healthy and helpful emotion. And it’s God’s gift that helps me get through the transitions of life.

I may have been hurt many years ago growing up. I may even be hurt by something somebody said about me. As a child, I didn’t know how to grieve in a healthy way, so I likely just pushed it down deep inside.

So I believe that God’s Word reminds me that I need to grieve that hurt. If I don’t grieve, I’ll get stuck emotionally, and spend the rest of my life reacting to something that happened a long time ago and possibly taking it out on the people around me. It’s unhealthy!

David talked about this in Psalm 32:3: “When I kept things to myself, I felt weak deep inside me. I moaned all day long” (NCV).

Also, the bad things that happen to me are not my choice. However grief is a choice! I’ve got to let myself mourn losses so that I can move forward to emotional and spiritual health.

In summary, Life is tough, the world is broken and nothing works perfectly. God doesn't expect me to be happy all the time. At times the only appropriate and logical response to life is grief. Grief is essential to my health. While grief is painful, it's also healthy and helpful. It's God's gift, a tool to get me through the transitions of life. The bad things that happen to me are not always my choice, but grief is. I've got to let myself mourn losses so that I can move on with my life and receive God's blessing.