What is normal grief, or normal
grieving? What does it look like to you? Can you define it? Can you tell when
someone is grieving normally or isn’t going through the standard stages?
In
this post, we’ll return one last time to the Second Samuel story of the death
of King David’s baby. I’ll start with the verses leading up to the ones I want
to cover today. And we’ll look at normal grieve, along with other important truths.
“When
David saw this his servants were whispering, David perceived that the child was
dead. Then David said to his servants, ‘Is the child dead?’”
“And
they said, ‘He is dead.’”
So
David arose from the ground, and washed and anointed himself, and changed his
clothes, and went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. Then he went to his
own house; and when he requested, they set food before him, and he ate. Then
his servants said to him, ‘What is this that you have done? You fasted and wept
for the child while he was alive, but when the child died, you arose and ate
food.’
“And
he said, ‘While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who can
tell whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now
he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him,
but he shall not return to me.”
We’ll
enter the scene today where David’s servants voice their shock at David’s
behavior: the fact that after the child died, he arose, cleaned, worshiped and
ate. In other words, David intentionally returned to life and acted “normally.”
But
his servants evidently didn’t think there was anything normal about David’s action, considering what had just happened to
his baby. They must have thought he should have thrown himself into deeper
mourning. They don’t understand it, and they pointedly confront him about his
behavior.
The
first takeaway from this section of the passage is: Don’t let anyone around you
tell you what “normal” should look like when you’re in the grieving process.
You are going to grieve the way you are going to grieve. In spite of
psychologists setting forth tidy, common stages of grief, that doesn’t mean
that you, personally, will experience all or any of them. And it doesn’t mean your grieving spouse or other
family members will grieve in the identical way you do. And it doesn’t mean
that if you’ve experienced the same type of loss that someone else has, that
you know exactly what he or she is going through. As a speaker told the
audience at a recent conference I attended, “I know you’ve lost your momma,
too, and you tell me you know how I feel. But don’t tell me you know how I
feel, because you don’t know how I
fee. That was my momma I lost; this
is my momma we’re talking about.”
Resist
letting others set grieving standards for you; and you must avoid setting
grieving standards for someone else. While we are called to weep with those who
weep, we are not called to “fix” or keep tabs on, or direct people through the
grieving process, to make sure they hit all of the stages, work through them,
and come out whole on the other side in a set period of time.
And
don’t assume that if a person quickly returns to life after a loss that they
did not grieve sufficiently or grieve well, or love deeply. And while David graciously
explained his reasons (which end up being for our benefit), do not feel
compelled to explain yours.
The
second point is to realize that, under the circumstances, you did your best.
David prayed and wept, on the chance that God might be gracious and spare his
son’s life. He knew he’d done all he could, and God’s answer was “No.” David faced
that answer and accepted it.
What
so many parents are tempted to do, though, is to chastise themselves (for
years, even) for not having done something more on behalf of their child. They
may be haunted by a fear that they did something wrong, something that caused
the death of their baby. They “just know” that if things went differently, that
the death could have been averted.
When
we think that way, we neglect to acknowledge God’s providence in the outcome.
While our fears and nagging thoughts may have some truth to them, replaying
them in our minds, and in our stories, and in our hearts won’t bring our babies
back. It won’t change the past. Thinking that way only saps us of our energy
for living in the present, and it often robs us of the love we can give others,
or the love others can give us. We do not need to go through penance. We’ll
never feel better if that’s how we approach it.
As
Dr. J. Vernon McGee wrote in his booklet, Death
of a Little Child: “Humanely speaking, you did the best you could. You are
not as wise nor as strong as God. You did what you could, and you must lave the
results to Him. Do not reproach yourself for negligence or ignorance. Regardless
of what you had done, you are still a fallible and feeble creature. You did the
best you could."
David
did all that he could at the time; and he never gave up hope, until the end was
proclaimed.
But
then his hope really still didn’t die, did it?
As
we see in the last line, and which I have talked about before, David maintained
hope. A blessed hope. One built on
the promises of God: the knowledge and belief that his precious baby was at
home in heaven and waiting for David to come to him.
As
he pointed out: “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”
He
knew, and firmly believed in, the end of the story. The happy ending. And there is a happy ending. In spite of all of your
anguish, you can be assured of a happy ending.
And
it’s this point that I will explore next week. Knowing you will see your little
one some day, and grieving as someone who has hope. You will know the joy that
David alluded to: Even though your child has gone on ahead of you, and will not
return to you in this time, you will one day go to your child and be reunited
with her!
Until next week,
Thanks for joining me!
Blessings,
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