Anyone who has ever lost a loved one battling for a long time knows the difficulty in the immediate wake of that loss. Waking up, they are expected to be in the same place as yesterday, but they are not there. The routine has not yet shifted away from caring for them moment by moment. The prayer life shifts from praying for the ill who is now in heaven, to praying for ill who are ill due to the loved one lost. And the one predictable response is grief’s unpredictability. Everyone mourns differently. Some are quiet and pensive. Others process verbally. Some go through spurts of emotion. Others carry a persisting low level of sadness. Some need a break after the funeral. Others need to go back to work immediately. Some want many people around them to comfort them. Others want to be left alone. Those are all personality and style issues. They are not health/unhealth issues.
But, regardless of the style of grief, there is good and bad grief. The good variety allows the hurt and sense of loss to permeate their being. Intimate relationships should cause a sense of loss. The closer two people are, the more intense their reaction to separation. The bad variety feels somewhat ashamed of grieving at all and feels that they must refrain from feeling. The good kind of grief presses in prayer and other efforts in a direction with a confidence. "I may hurt, but God heals hurts and I will trust him to fix it, assured that he will fix it whether I see or feel it now." The bad kind of grief moves in no direction or in a resistant or self-pity direction. "I am hurt and I shouldn’t be hurt like this. So, I refuse to believe it can be better. I was robbed of a loved one. I will resist the robber." The problem with that is that anger, fear, bitterness, regret or resentment are certain to develop.
God heals. We have prayed for healing for Mitch. He received the ultimate healing, even though I begged God for a more earthy healing. Now our understanding of God’s healing hand shifts to what he can do with us in our grief. He’s already begun the work. We have some good grief taking place in our house. Waking up in each morning, we need it. And, we are receiving it. God is back to doing healing work in our lives in a curious and unsolicited way. We’ll take heaven for Mitch and grief mingled with joy for us. Both are evidences of healing.