Beth is one of my dearest friends. She had been married for 24 years when her husband walked away from their marriage. Beth is a very strong Christian and for five years put on a happy face telling everyone, including herself, "That's OK. Jesus is enough." She has two absolutely incredible children who love the Lord and both serve in some facet of ministry. And yet, I wondered if she had been the first person I had ever known who had skipped the grieving process that follows the devastation of divorce.
She was not.
Five years after the divorce, Beth and I were talking about some struggles she was facing in a new relationship.
"Beth, I don't think you ever allowed yourself to grieve over your loss. I know your first husband betrayed you at the very core of what a marriage is supposed to be, but there is still a loss. There is grieving the loss that your children do not have the father they deserve, the loss of investing twenty-four years with a man who betrayed you, and the loss of the dream of what marriage could and should be like - what God intended from the beginning of time."
Beth is just now beginning to grieve the many losses that accompanied her divorce and she - and her two grown children - are in the process of breaking free.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, in her book, On Death and Dying, notes five stages of grief: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. But for us who have the hope of Jesus Christ, there is a sixth stage: resurrection.
Grief is part of the healing process. I grieved that I did not grow up being the apple of my daddy's eye, that I was not unconditionally loved, and that I did not get to hold my second child in my arms. Grieving the loss helped me to let it go. But after a time, I had to stop lamenting what was not, and rejoice in the blessing of what is. God had new plans for my life!
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:11-13 NIV).
Just as God raised Jesus from the dead, He can raise our broken dreams. Acceptance is not the end of the grieving process for those of us who know Jesus Christ.
Resurrection is the end of grief and the beginning of a dream, a new life, and a glorious future.
