Grief Myth #2: “I’m Recovering from Grief”

by Peggy Haymes, Pinnacle Associate

Have you heard people talk about “grief recovery?”

I’m not for it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for healing from grief. I think it gets tricky, however, when we talk about “recovering” from grief.

The Oxford Dictionary gives these definitions for recovery:

1. a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength.

2. the action or process of regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost.

Do you notice the common thread? It’s that you have something back that you had lost. And that’s impossible when it comes to grief.

What we have lost is lost to us. That person will never physically be in our lives again. We will never again gather in that place with that congregation in the ways that we used to gather together every week. I’ve read of pet owners who can afford to do such things as having their pets cloned as a way to avoid that loss. Even with this, the new pet cannot be exactly the same. The cloned pet will have different life experiences that shape them.

What we have lost in our lives we have lost and will never be recovered. Our lives will never be exactly the same as they were before the loss.

So what’s the point of healing?

Everything.

Grief is a transformational experience. The fact of the loss changes our lives in some way. Healing is entering into that transformational experience with intention. We cannot change what has happened in our lives, including the losses. We can, however, choose how we respond to them.

Healing from grief means entering into the reality of the loss while trusting that the God who makes things new may yet do the same in us.

Navigating GriefLand isn’t just about supporting each other in our grief, although it certainly is that. It's also about helping each other along the path of that transformation, finding the structure and information that we need.

Some losses affect a small part of our world, and some losses totally upend our world. Healing may mean that this small part of our world looks different tomorrow than it did yesterday. Or it may mean that our lives are fundamentally different.

Either way, we don't have to navigate it alone. Click HERE to learn more about Navigating GriefLand.