Endurance for the Journey, Featured, Grief

For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under the sun.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
ECCLESIASTES 3:1,4 (NLT)

It’s okay to grieve your new normal! People too often try to suppress the expression of other’s grief by making comments dripping in positivity or redirecting the sufferer from their grief because it makes them feel uncomfortable. Grief can rub others the wrong way because happiness and positivity is much more acceptable and comfortable to society overall. When a person is out of their comfort zone, they do what they can to change things to get back into their comfort zone even if it means they diminish someone else’s emotions. Humans like to fix things if they sense they are broken.

Even the DSM-5, which is the book of official diagnoses for psychological illnesses, created a new diagnosis in 2022 of “prolonged grief disorder.” I have such a problem with this because every human grieves differently in different ways and for different lengths of time. To force humanity into a box that squelches emotion is so wrong. Grief, about losing your body’s ability to function, does not mean you are broken, no matter how long you grieve or how you grieve!

Taking time to grieve yet trying not to dwell on the sorrow is a lifelong process and should be accepted, embraced and allowed. There is a time to grieve …

(Written with permission from the blog of Abi Gordon)
(Sign up for Abi’s Blog at EphemeralandFaithful.com)

On the journey with you,
Jan & Dave Dravecky