Guest Column / Richard Etienne

Invite God into your pain, ask him to begin process of healing

Grief is an inevitable part of life. If we are blessed to live long enough, we will suffer some experience of loss.

The death of a loved one is the greatest form of grief, but there are many other smaller forms of loss that are part of life—a loss of a job, loss of a home, loss of a close friendship, loss of our own health, and so on.

How are we as Catholic Christians supposed to deal with these losses in life? In the Book of Psalms, we hear, “Listen, God, to my prayer; do not hide from my pleading; hear me and give answer. I rock with grief” (Ps 55:2-3). And in another Psalm, “Lord, rescue me! Come quickly to help me, Lord!” (Ps 40:14)

When we are suffering the deep pangs of grief, it is difficult to imagine that we will ever feel happiness again. It is hard to place our trust in God and be hopeful that we will get through this period. But we must be patient.

In Psalm 40, it states, “I waited, waited for the Lord; who bent down and heard my cry” (Ps 40:2). God will act on his timetable. We live in a world of Chronos—clock time. God lives in Chiros—his time.

Our oldest son was born 10 days before my wife’s due date as a result of a head-on automobile accident. I remember the grief that I felt after his birth from an emergency cesarean section and asking my spiritual director if that grief would ever subside.

When a person is in the middle of a severe grief experience, it can seem like it will never heal. I was told that in time the pain would begin to diminish if I allowed it some “space.” I had previously thought that giving pain “space” might allow it to overwhelm me. I was also encouraged to invite God into the process of healing. And if I am being honest, I was pretty angry during this time.

But with time, God began to heal me.

In the Book of Jeremiah, we read, “Oh Lord, my strength, my fortress, my refuge in the day of distress!” (Jer 16:19) And in Psalm 46, we read, “God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in distress” (Ps 46:2).

I eventually began to feel joy again.

Are you experiencing grief from a recent experience, or something that happened many ago that still hurts when you remember it? Have you invited God into your pain and asked him to begin the process of healing? Would now be a good time to do that?
 

(Richard Etienne is a member of St. John the Baptist Parish in Newburgh, Ind., in the Evansville Diocese.) †