I want to thank many who have acknowledged my blog and to others who have read it, your responses have been encouraging and will help me through this journey.
I am certainly aware that is very possible to over analyze grief, making it into something so complex. I also know and was reminded by my uncle that as Christians in the bible we are urged not to mourn as those of the world as those who have no hope. But we thank God that because Jesus Christ was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief he is with us all the way.
However, I live in Britain, a society that does not like to be confronted with emotions of a grieving person, so we expect the bereaved to function as if nothing had ever happened. I understand that It used to be that when someone died in Christian societies, the normal activities of life stopped. They were replaced by rituals of mourning. This provided a healthy respect for the deceased and allowed the bereaved to fully express their grief. Such rituals involved lots of community activity so that a person could–in his or her own time–resume normal life once again.
The historian of Western Christian attitudes toward dying, Philippe Aries, wrote that a death in a community once “solemnly altered space and time.” People stopped their activities and visited family members. The home was decorated so that all would know a grieving family was inside. They cared for the beloved’s corpse. And eventually, they carried it on to the church to worship a final time and then to the grave to rest until Christ returned.
Christians made a big deal out of death. If the death of a member of a community wasn’t worth lamenting, then what was her life worth? Of course, Christians historically made sure they did not mourn as those who have no hope, as the apostle Paul admonished. Yet, hope in the resurrection and belief that we would be reunited with our loved ones only means that a relationship, now broken, will be repaired. The ache of loss still mattered. (The 'Strength' of Not Showing Grief: Would we be applauding Joannie Rochette had she decided not to skate?)
In the immediate aftermath of the loss of my twin sister I wrote an eulogy what I consider a Christian response:
“The world will certainly be poorer with her absence.
Today she stands, gloriously victorious in heaven while the enemy is astounded, she graces God’s presence after life’s fitful struggles. Some may say have they not won?”
But I quote from the Bible, the book of 1 Corinthians 15:56-57 and ask:
“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
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