Mourning for Sarah

I found out many years ago that most people need help with their mourning when they lose a loved one. Many people do not understand that we all grieve such loses, and we go through a process of grieving over the next months or even years. That is why I try to share about the grief process as often as I can. Abraham lost his wife, Sarah in Kiriath-arba. (Genesis 23:2) The Bible records that he went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. Let's take some time to feel this with Abraham and to learn about our own personal mourning.

Any time we lose a loved one, like Abraham lost his dear wife, Sarah, it causes us to feel sadness as the realty of the death sinks in. Very often it does causes us to weep. This is only the beginning of the grief process. We have funeral and memorial services, so we can grieve, and there can be closure for us. If not, we can go into denial of our loss. This is very harmful. Yes, it may hurt us badly, and we may miss our loved one greatly, but we must accept that death is a part of life. Then, we often have questions that crop up. We second guess our actions, and many times we think that we could have or should have done things differently. We need to allow the Lord to help us with all of this, but especially with dealing with the questions. We must realize God is in control, and we did not cause our loved one to die, and we could not have prevented it. Then, we can go into depression, which leads us to isolate ourselves and takes away our energy. We must not stay alone, but get out to allow others to help us grieve. Finally, we come to know that God has seen us through, if we trust Him and let Him help us, so that we can see that God used our loss to grow us and lead us closer to Him. When we get to that point, we have come through the grief process, and we have done it in a healthy way with God's help. However, many people get stuck on one of these stages, and they suffer for years. God never wants that to happen.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Genesis 24-27.