Expressing Loss

• I’ve lost a trip I had planned to visit global workers in SE Asia.
• I’ve lost routine in my day.
• I’ve lost having control over anything.
• I’ve lost getting to see my family and friends.
• I’ve lost assurance of availability of good health care.
• I’ve lost being able to go on a walk outside and feel the sun on my face.
• I’ve lost being able to plan for the future.
• I’ve lost alone time since my kids are always home now.
• I’ve lost financial security.
• I’ve lost independent decision making ability.
• And many more…

Part of our role with Barnabas as Directors of Staff Care and Development has been to facilitate a weekly gathering of our staff online for a prayer and praise hour during our time of quarantine around the world. On a recent call we asked our staff to share losses they had experienced because of this virus. Maybe you too can identify with some of those listed.

We’re all experiencing unprecedented loss; some of you may even know someone who has died from the Covid-19 virus. So what do we do with this loss? What is that low level hum of anxiety or discomfort we are experiencing to varying degrees every day? How do we talk to God about any of this? Where even is He?

In an article in the Harvard Business Review, David Kessler, an expert on grief says,

“There is something powerful about naming this as grief. It helps us feel what’s inside of us. When you name it, you feel it and it moves through you. Emotions need motion. It’s important we acknowledge what we go through.”

https://hbr.org/2020/03/that-discomfort-youre-feeling-is-grief

Grief in the Bible is expressed through lament. In October of 2019, before any of us even knew what the terms coronavirus or social distancing meant, I traveled with eight of my Barnabas colleagues to minister to women at a retreat in Split, Croatia. There I shared on the topic of lament which is expressing our honest emotions to God when conflict or struggles come and life is not going as planned. Lament insists nothing is out of bounds with God. He invites us to share every part of ourselves with Him.

I’ve never been good at expressing my emotions, especially negative ones, and I think in my faith I’ve held a subtle belief that expressing these things would be an act of unfaith, like talking about these unresolved tensions means acknowledging God has lost too much control. A missionary I was recently meeting with asked, “What’s the point of telling that stuff to God? Why would He want to hear that?” As I studied the processing of emotions and honesty with God in the Bible I made some important discoveries.

Remember the story of Job? He suffered tremendous loss and some friends come to tell him all the things he’d done wrong to make God angry and how Job could fix it. Job had finally had enough and got honest with God and poured out his lament to God. He didn’t hold back. So what was God’s response to that? God told Job who He is, He showed Job Himself and then God talked to Job’s friends and said:

“I am angry with you, You haven’t been honest either with me or about me—not the way my friend Job has. My friend Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer. He will ask me not to treat you as you deserve for talking nonsense about me, and for not being honest with me, as he has.”

Job 42:7 from The Message

It’s amazing God called Job His friend because he was honest with Him! David, who wrote many of the lament Psalms and was brutally honest with God, was called a man after God’s own heart! Jesus Himself, in the Garden of Gethsemane lamented so deeply that it says He sweat drops of blood. (Luke 22:14)

Expressing our honest emotions before God will deepen our friendship with Him. Think about your best friendship? How deep would that friendship be if you only ever shared the good stuff in your life? In recent weeks in our house, we’ve been using a feeling wheel (http://feelingswheel.com/) and each taking a turn every night to share the emotions we’ve felt during the day. Some days there’s nothing to say but numb or angry and that’s ok.

Dear friends, if you hear nothing else, hear this, you are the beloved of God and He wants all of you. He’s safe to take the deepest hurting parts of you. He wants you to share your anger and frustration with Him. He will love you and meet you and a friendship with Him will grow in ways you cannot even imagine. That is our prayer for you. This little video depicts just that:

If this post has stirred up any thoughts in you, please share them in the comment section below.