Take Time to Grieve, Oklahoma

Do not feel or think that you must be strong, keeping a "stiff upper lip," shedding no tears for your losses. Cry: mourn your losses, for they are as real as the last breath you just received. Be angry, but do not allow your anger to lead you into sin (Eph. 4:26), for your anger will not produce the righteous attitude of God (James 1:20). Nevertheless, you are allowed to be angry; you are allowed to grieve and mourn; and we are called to grieve along with you (Rom. 12:15). We pray for you while you are in need, as you pray for us when we are in need. (link)    

Do not feel or think that you must move past your grief quickly. The late Henri Nouwen writes:

We do not nurse the illusion that we can hopscotch our way through difficulties. For by trying to hide parts of our story from God's eye and our own consciousness, we become judges of our own past. We limit divine mercy to our human fears. Our efforts to disconnect ourselves from our own suffering end up disconnecting our suffering from God's suffering for us.¹

Only through the difficult process of grieving do we better understand ourselves, the world in which we exist, and the God of all creation. Nouwen continues: "The voice of evil also tries to tempt us to put on an invincible front. Words such as vulnerability, letting go, surrendering, crying, mourning, and grief are not to be found in the devil's dictionary."² But unless we learn to endure suffering, and to properly grieve and cope with evil -- whether from nature or of human origin -- we will never fully realize not only our human frailty but also compassion for one another.  

In the process of grieving we also experience and better understand -- and hopefully better learn how to cope with -- the problem of evil and suffering. From a scriptural perspective, we cannot discount the activity of the devil, since Scripture emphatically insists that "the whole world lies under the power of the evil one" (1 John 5:19). Though Christ Jesus "was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8), his terrors are still felt, and will be felt until Christ returns, sending him and his followers to an eternal prison.

We must also not allow ourselves to be fooled into thinking that keeping busy will heal our pain. This, too, could be a trick of the enemy. Again, Nouwen writes:

The world in which we live lies in the power of the Evil One, and the Evil One would prefer to distract us and fill every little space with things to do, people to meet, business to accomplish, products to be made. He does not allow any space for genuine grief and mourning. Our busyness becomes a curse, even while we think it provides us with relief from the pain inside. Our overpacked lives serve only to keep us from facing the inevitable difficulty that we all, at some time or another, must face.³ 

Coping with pain and loss is difficult, and busyness will not aid us; in fact, busyness may delay our healing, because it robs us of actually facing reality.  

Victims of the recent EF5 tornado throughout the Moore, Oklahoma area, do yourselves a very healthy favor and grieve -- we are grieving with you. Many Christians are praying with and for you. But grieve with hope in sight.   

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¹ Henri J.M. Nouwen, Turn My Mourning into Dancing: Finding Hope in Hard Times (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2001), 6.

² Ibid., 8-9.

³ Ibid., 8.