The human experience is a life mixture of blessings, confusion, intense emotional grief, loss, trauma, and suffering.
In moments of pain, our second response to hurt is the natural response of mourning, but this is a CHOICE. Storms of life are not things that will go away—they are journeys that often emerge like waves; however, by a relational choice, they can run out of energy.
Multiple emotions are involved in our losses, like sadness, fear, emptiness, anger, apathy, guilt, bitterness, and helplessness, but eventually, growth, peace, rest, and love are possible.
Loss leads to grief and pain. We often fight back with denial and anger to deflect the pain, but this only delays our recovery.
When we lose someone, relational gaps are created in our lives. This loss puts a distance and confusion in our Minds. Our emotions may come like reoccurring waves of an ocean. Mental distortions can creep in. Our behaviors change.
You may cry out in protest, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me (Matthew 27:46). Your Mind (soul) may experience fear and anxiety, feelings of abandonment, the drift of your soul, and a loss of identity.
However, in Psalm 73:23, God reminds our hearts by saying, “…I am always with you; you take hold of My right hand.” God is encouraging us to regain rest, peace, and joy by partnering life’s journey with His supply of Divine love and care. The answers to our grief are three-fold:
1. To express our feelings of loss, and invite friends to walk with us. The greatest of friends is our Ultimate Secure Relationship with God whose friendship flows with His Divine Love, Community, and healing care.
2. To express your protest at the loss. Even Jesus expressed weeping at the grave of Lazarus before He raised him from the dead. This gives us hope.
3. Grief is a new way to experience the God of comfort.
The underlying issue of all trauma, violence, loss, pain, and suffering is the result of relational separation caused by evil. Evil produces pain and suffering. Evil and suffering go hand and hand. However, originally, in Genesis 1:31, “God saw all that He had made and it was good” – at that time there was no evil and suffering until creation was altered by evil’s deception.
We see in Romans 1:20, that evil came from mankind observing and desiring the material world vs. supremely desiring Life’s Source, God, and separating themselves from Him. This separation between God and mankind caused the relational and intelligible brain to disrupt, disorient, and disintegrate—no longer functioning as a complete whole. Trauma ensued—we felt fear and shame, and we hid from God. This was humanity's first LOSS, which brought pain and suffering, and continues as an evil social contagion to the Mind.
Suffering represents our relational struggle. Wholeness is absent. Pain is present. Evil wants us isolated and alone in fear while the love of God is extended as an antidote for hope in healing the mind, emotions, body, and soul. God offers redemption to the human heart and minds through a relational partnership of love and care—a major attribute of God’s nature.
Our greatest recovery is “Relational Hope” in God Himself as He guides humanity collectively to renew the mind and soul. The essence of working with grief, pain, and suffering is about bearing witness to each other’s story and entering into the heart of God about the evil they experienced. This is the purpose of God the Father sending Jesus Christ to help us bear the weight of our loss, grief, and suffering.
The prophetic fulfillment of the life of Jesus and the wounds He bore for us at the Cross are our empirical historical evidence that God has always loved, cared for, and supplied our ULTIMATE SECURE RELATIONSHIP. The victory of Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of a new hope, a new identity, and a power to overcome evil and suffering.
God came to fearing, shame-filled, and hiding Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8-9) just as He comes to us today to help us get out of pain and suffering. Rather than remain in the anguish of loss and suffering with a “divided mind (heart)” we can respond to our memories in four ways:
1. Talk is necessary for recovery. SHARE your story and give a place for caring again through a trusted secure friend, or counselor, if needed. Share your grief and tears. The path of pain removal takes time. God came in Jesus Christ to share in our story.
2. This phase involves relationships. RELATIONSHIPS need to be heard to release the darkness and connect our Minds with another Person (God and other people).
3. Work and Purpose. Everyone was designed to create and produce “good,” which gives us dignity, honor, and respect. Work connects us to life and quicker recovery.
4. FAITH. Trauma, loss, and pain disrupt and toxify the Mind attempting to switch off FAITH.
For this reason, Paying Attention to our Mind through exercises like the Wheel of Awareness and I-CARE helps us tune into our Five Senses, Brain, Body, and Relationships to see Reality and be heard, seen, soothed, feel safe, and secure.
God has promised to make all things new—Standing at the door of your mind knocking!
(For more detail on the Wheel of Awareness and I-CARE see the FAR worksheet and exercises.)