Grief and God: Let’s Talk About It

Before I embraced faith in my work, I practiced as a secular therapist. I was trained in a secular graduate program and was unsure of how to merge my faith with my professional work. I did not want to push my beliefs on my clients or make anyone feel uncomfortable. And so I acted as though God and faith didn’t exist. I simply avoided the topic as I was taught to do. But I always felt a nagging presence in the therapy room. Wouldn’t faith help this client? Isn’t God the peace they are searching for? Wouldn’t God provide the healing they are so desperately craving? Despite my internal knowing, I ignored the thoughts (Holy Spirit?) for years. Honestly, I was too afraid to talk about God. 

However, there was always one topic in therapy in which I simply could not ignore God’s presence. Despite my fear, my discomfort, and my lack of confidence, I could not deny God when confronted with grief. I could not witness a grieving client’s love and suffering and simply outline the stages of grief. I could not sit with them while they cried and mourned and deny the hope that God provides in the midst of death. I could not suppress their grief through suppressing God.

Unfortunately, our culture does suppress grief. We are uncomfortable talking about death and God and so we avoid the topics all together. We don’t know how to provide comfort to those who grieve and so we tend to say nothing at all. Their pain is too uncomfortable to witness and so we deny it. We want to act as though it doesn’t exist so that we can all move on. But grief doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t disappear with time. It is not healed with avoidance. It cannot be swept under the metaphorical rug without consequence.

Grief is a form of love that demands to be witnessed. The love is strong and pure and beautiful. We must be able to celebrate the love and the lives of those who have gone before us. Their deaths do not erase the beauty of their lives or the love we still have for them. And so we must actively grieve them. We must talk about them and laugh and cry and celebrate milestones. We must break free from the stages of grief or a strict timeline that dictates an appropriate end to grieving. Love does not fit into a linear stage model. It does not end when society says it is time to move on. There are no limits to love. 

The limitlessness of love inspires hope. Not only is love not bound within a stage or a timeline, it is also not limited to our Earthly lives. It transcends death. We can have hope in the midst of death because we have God. Because Jesus has conquered death. We can have hope because we have faith.

So let us have hope and faith in the midst of grief. Let us not deny our grief or our God. Let us help one another to carry the cross of grief. And let us never forget the love or the hope of the Resurrection. 

All my love,

Jillian

Resources

P.S. A few notes on resources for grief…

St. Elizabeth Ann Seaton is the patron saint of grief. You can pray the St. Elizabeth Ann Seaton Novena for your prayer intention.

Prayers for the souls of the deceased:

In your hands, O Lord,
we humbly entrust our brothers and sisters.
In this life you embraced them with your tender love;
deliver them now from every evil
and bid them eternal rest.

The old order has passed away:
welcome them into paradise,
where there will be no sorrow, no weeping or pain,
but fullness of peace and joy
with your Son and the Holy Spirit
forever and ever.

Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ,
by your own three days in the tomb,
you hallowed the graves of all who believe in you
and so made the grave a sign of hope
that promises resurrection
even as it claims our mortal bodies.

Grant that our brother/sister, N., may sleep here in peace
until you awaken him/her to glory,
for you are the resurrection and the life.
Then he/she will see you face to face
and in your light will see light
and know the splendor of God,
for you live and reign forever and ever.

Amen.

Prayers for those who are grieving:

Lord God,
you are attentive to the voice of our pleading.
Let us find in your Son
comfort in our sadness,
certainty in our doubt,
and courage to live through this hour.
Make our faith strong
through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Lord,
[Name of the deceased] is gone now from this earthly dwelling,
and has left behind those who mourn his/her absence.
Grant that we may hold his/her memory dear,
never bitter for what we have lost
nor in regret for the past,
but always in hope of the eternal Kingdom
where you will bring us together again.
Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

O Lord, whose ways are beyond understanding,
listen to the prayers of your faithful people:
that those weighed down by grief
at the loss of this little child
may find reassurance in your infinite goodness.
Through Christ our Lord.

Amen