Grief is our emotional and physiological response to adjusting to life after the loss, typically of a very emotionally significant place, relationship, or person very close to us. Like every change that humans experience, God created this response to serve a purpose. Change is hard for us to accept, especially when that change is so painful. While we can’t live a life on Earth without pain and loss, we can trust that God’s plans will provide us with purpose and peace beyond our loss.
I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes. - Psalm 6:6-7 NIV
Grief can look like a lot of things. The typical roadmap that you might think of when you think about the grieving process is the Five Stages of Grief Model: denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance. During your grieving process, you might experience a few or all of these stages. You also may find that they don’t occur in this order or you go back and forth between different feelings.
Keep in mind it can be very difficult to define grief. You may notice you are experiencing grief because your behaviors change or your moods don’t seem to align with what is going on around you. Grief is typically a very heavy and sad experience. You might become very emotional or feel very little emotion at all. It may look different for you based on how you respond to loss or what stage of grief you are in. It is normal to feel overwhelmed by these emotions or feelings while you face grief and it is normal to feel you can’t participate in what is happening around you.