Good Grief!
I have been pondering the differences in griefs that we face as humans. Our griefs and our grief reactions are very different and are dictated by the perception of loss, either real, anticipated or imagined. I have actually watched clients grieve an imagined loss at times. For example a loss of a relationship that never really existed outside of a client’s imagination. 
The loss itself is real in that the client realizes she does not have the person that she loves, but the focus of the grief, an imagined love, is not real. Our grief reactions are also greatly impacted on our own grounding and ability to handle the unimaginable. Of course all of this is often compounded by the extent of tragedy and suddenness of our loss. This business of grief is a hard one to manage. I think that my own griefs of late are not imagined, but rather are of an anticipatory nature.
Anticipatory loss, for me personally anyway, is a very difficult thing to grapple with. As a Christian I do not think it is OK for me to dwell on the 1001 possible directions in which things may go. I think it is necessary to plan ahead, but there is a fine line between planning and worrying. Worry is a piece of luggage that comes with the whole anticipatory loss scenario, and unfortunately I think it comes with motherhood. I guess it sounds a tad Cartesian to say “I am mom, therefore I worry.” It is true though. Ultimately this worry feeds into the impact of grief. If we worry then we move from the realm of anticipated loss and into the realm of imagined loss. Imagined loss can be very troublesome and traumatic. Ask any mother who has a son in Iraq right now. She will tell you that every story that she comes across about a car bomb, an IED explosion, or a soldier being killed in any fashion, suddenly takes on a place in her mind about her own son. She grieves the possible loss of her son… some of that is an anticipatory grief… anticipating the worst case scenario, and it can easily become a full blown grief of an imagined loss if she does not reel her thoughts in and control them. Mothers have an incredible imagination when it comes to their children and safety.
God, in His incredible wisdom, gave us this tool that we call grief to handle and deal with the traumas of living. Life is a lesson in letting go, and grief is the vehicle that gets us to the other side of holding onto something, someone, or someplace that is gone. When we lose something we grieve so that the final closure is delayed until we are ready, emotionally and spiritually. Grief in and of itself is a hard, but still blessed thing, to experience. I know that may sound rather morbid, but let me explain why it is a blessed thing. Loss is inevitable in this life. It is going to happen to all of us at some point or another. When we face that loss and allow ourselves to feel the sadness and emptiness that a loss brings to us, we can find comfort in a reassuring knowledge that God will never leave us or forsake us. What a comfort! When we fight the grief process and cover those feelings up with distractions then we never really come to peace with a loss and we can fall into despair. We then become stuck, and can fall into a pattern of sin and anger. Grief is a vehicle that gets us from one scenario in life to the next. From having to not having. From hoping for one particular outcome to not. I have to reiterate here that a Christian grief is not rooted in hopelessness and nothingness, but rather it is rooted in the saving grace and knowledge that we serve a God who is all powerful, all wise, and who we never need to worry about losing. When you keep your heart focused on those thoughts, then suddenly you realize that there is nothing on this earth that you can lose that you can not face and mourn through. Suddenly an anticipatory grief becomes a little easier and lighter to carry.
I guess this particular topic is heavy on my heart right now due to my own adjustments of Mike being officially in Baghdad, and in Bryan’s leaving. I am anticipating how life will be when he is not home. I am anticipating how it will feel to reach over in the middle of the night and not feel him next to me. It is a sad time for me when I think of those things. I am so glad that I know I have reassurance in Christ, and that He will provide me with the strength, grace and wisdom to get through these days of sadness.
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