Beginning to Process Grief

In the face of the death of someone we love, particularly the death of a child, we can expect to feel a range of emotions such as sadness, confusion, anger, disbelief, and numbness. While we all face similar feelings, each person's grief response is as unique as we are. The following are ways that both you and your family can take some positive steps in the face of loss.

• Go to the memorial service. The service we will be having for Hailey on Saturday will be intentionally kid friendly. There will be a special message just for the kids, lots of music and some practical ways to find hope in the face of loss. It will be a great way to remember Hailey, celebrate her life, and receive resources to provide comfort and hope in the face of loss.
  
• Light a candle to remember and share memories and feelings. (Hailey loved lighting the candles at the beginning of worship services at Spring of Life to remind us that God – the Light of the World – is with us now through the presence of the Holy Spirit.)
  
• Sad isn't bad. Being sad is normal. We're sad because we love and have a real loss.
  
• Draw a picture or write a letter to Hailey sharing your feelings and memories. We have a booklet called "Remembering my Someone Special" at Spring of Life that you can drop by and pick up. It is a helpful tool for talking to your kids who are 6-12 years of age. We've got another resource for younger kids as well. We will also be creating a scrapbook of pictures, drawings, letters, etc that we will bind and give to the Collins to keep to remember Hailey. You can bring your contribution to the scrapbook by the church anytime.
  
• Make a memory box that you can put things in that remind you of Hailey.
  
• Write a prayer that includes your feelings – sad, mad, glad, scared. It's ok to tell God exactly how you feel. The writers of the book of Psalms did it all the time.
  
• Participate in raising funds for Hailey's Hopes and Hugs Foundation
  
• Allow yourself to have fun and laugh when the time comes. You don't need to feel guilty because the first person who would have joined in the fun and laughter was Hailey.
  

There are some important life lessons that we can learn through this time. There are some well-meaning things that we might think are helpful but really are not. Here are some of those things:

• Saying, "She's in a better place so we shouldn't be sad." Really, by faith we believe that Hailey is not hurting anymore and that she is with God in a new way that none of us really understand. But our loss is still very real and being sad is a natural feeling God gives us to deal with losing someone we love.
  
• Saying, "God must have needed her more than we did." Or "God must have needed another angel in heaven." Really, God didn't cause Hailey to die. Cancer did. God didn't give Hailey cancer. We aren't sure how she got it. It is just one of those things that happens that we don't understand. Our faith teaches us that one day we will rise from the dead like Jesus when he comes again in final victory. We will have new resurrection bodies that will never die. All this is a gift from God through Jesus. It is God's will that we be healed and well which not only means personally feeling well, but also being in community with one another. This is why God makes such a big deal about forgiveness. That is the way God heals community. God will find ways to take this horrible loss and use it for his purposes, just like God took the horrible death of Jesus on the cross and used it for his purpose to bring new life to the world.
  

If you don't really know what to say then that's ok. In the face of Job's great loss the best thing his friends did was sit with him and weep without saying a word for seven days (See Job 2:11-13). It was when they opened their mouth that things went south. If you are looking for something to say, then say how you feel rather than trying to say something clever. It's always good to say "I love you." Or share about a memory of Hailey that you will always remember. But remember that it is your presence and friendship that will mean the most at this time.

A Lament in the Context of Enduring Faith

Nicolas Wolterstorff's son died when he was 22 and he writes about his grief and loss in the book, "Lament for a Son." Wolterstorff writes this, "I must explore The Lament as a mode for my address to God. Psalm 42 is a lament in the context of a faith that endures. Lament and trust are in tension, like wood and string in a bow."
When a child dies, it is an unspeakable loss for a parent. There are no answers to our questions, "Why them and not me? Why a child when there is so much life unlived? Why would God watch them die and do nothing? Why would God watch us suffer such loss?"
Still more unspeakable a loss is to say, "There must be no God since my questions have no answers." Perhaps the faith we once had will never be the same. But like a tree whose leaves turn in the fall, drop in the winter and bud again in the spring, our faith can be born anew – similar in shape, but altogether new, different, changed by time, age, death and life.
In the midst of our own loss, we might find ourselves drawn to others who have walked this path ahead of us. I want to quiz them like I would someone who is exiting a frightening roller coaster. "You survived?! What was it like? If you made it, do you think I'd make it?"
The Bible is filled with the witness of those exiting the roller coaster and making their way by the Spirit of God onto the next one which carries yet untold adventure. The words are a tension of lament and trust.
I couldn't imagine walking the path of lament in any other context than enduring faith. Maybe it isn't always "my" faith. Sometimes it is the faith of others - others who believe and trust when I can't, like the church and Jesus himself.
A quote from mother Teresa that has helped me pray through the years comes to mind: "When times come when we can't pray, it is very simple: if Jesus is in my heart, let Him pray, let Him talk to His Father in the silence of my heart. Since I cannot speak, He will speak; since I cannot pray, He will pray."
The writer of Psalm 42 says, "My tears have been my food day and night. I remember," he says, "how it was when joy was still my lot, how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng. Now it's different. I am downcast, disturbed. Yet I find that faith is not dead. So I say to myself, 'Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.' But then my grief returns and again I lament to God my Rock: 'Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? Again faith replies: Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God."
Wolterstorff reflects on this Psalm: "Back and forth, lament and faith, faith and lament, each fastened to the other."
A lament in the context of faith that endures. Through a veil of tears we can say, "Thanks be to God."