Interrupted Expectations

By Jan Stockdale

Interrupted Expectations
Psalms 34:18
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

    For so many years of my life I have believed that grief and loss were only due to someone dying. Going to a funeral to celebrate their life was a bittersweet experience. The loss of saying goodbye and living without having them in my life right now was deeply felt with sorrow and grief. My hope was in the assurance of living with them in eternity but it still left me broken hearted!  However, what I know now is there are many interrupted expectations that occur in a life time and are definitely a space designed for me to recognize and grieve.
    I have designed a class that I teach called “Interrupted Expectations.” It is all about loss and grief and how we handle these interruptions. The passion to help others understand the purpose and benefit of embracing the grief and loss while giving people tools to accomplish this, was birthed out of a conversation I had one day with a counselor at my church. I asked her, “What is the root cause that you find in your clients when they come in for your help with a particular issue?” What she proceeded to say was a paradigm shift for me at that moment. She said, ”Eight out of ten of my clients that come to see me for a particular issue, I can take them back to a specific time in their lives where there has been a significant loss that they did not grieve appropriately.” That seems like a pretty high percentage to me so I began the process in my life of allowing God to reveal to me these interrupted expectations of loss that I have buried deep within my heart, that will always resurrect somewhere. The picture that came to my mind was that of a volcano and how at times it looked calm and peaceful but knowing that it had the power to spew out hot fiery gushes of lava at any given moment. That was the way that I could see my emotions if they were not acknowledged and grieved appropriately.
    My research has given me validation in helping others. The Bible has given me revelation of loss in models of how to express my grief. Being in ministry has helped me validate and normalize (not fix) the sorrow and pain of loss in the lives of those searching for answers to healthy recovery.
    So what I hope to give you as pastors wives will be tools for you to give away to others but also give you a place to acknowledge your grief and loss. God wants to give you health and healing and he wants to heal what you are willing to reveal.
    At first I would like to have us explore a few defense mechanisms that we all could be carrying with us that we must recognize and step out of. An excellent acrostic taken from Celebrate Recovery material gives a picture of a major defense mechanism called denial.

D... disables our feelings
E... Energy loss
N...Negates growth
I....Isolate us from God
A...Alienates us from our relationships
L...Lengthens the pain

Other denial walls of defense might look like minimizing your pain and grief by comparing it to others, blaming others and even yourself rather than looking honestly at what is true reality. Also rationalizing, intellectualizing and becoming hostile are road blocks as adults that keep us from growing spiritually and emotionally. What I now understand about grief is, it is about a broken heart, not a broken brain. All efforts to heal the heart with the head tend to fail because the head is the wrong tool for the job. Grievers are not broken, therefore they do not need to be fixed.
    What does work as you step out of denial? Understanding grief is the normal and natural reaction to loss of any kind will help. Grief is conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior. Embrace your grief and walk through it not around it. Jesus was acquainted with grief and suffering (Isaiah 53:3) and as we are being transformed and conformed to His image we to have to embrace sorrow and grief as a part of life. Many today believe that the pathway of life ought to be smooth and fair. Any interrupted expectation or loss is out of the ordinary.  Perhaps it is the other way around, that the smooth, comfortable times of life are in reality a bit abnormal.
    In John 16:33, Jesus says to us his children,
“ I have told you these things so in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart I have overcome the world.” Therein lies our HOPE. One day God will make it right!
    Interrupted expectations cause major adjustments in our lives, one that we would rather avoid, but are inevitable. Loss is one of our constant companions throughout life, so it is so confusing to me that we don’t talk about it very often. For some reason the concept of loss means something is wrong and carries over into almost every area of life. Yet with every loss comes potential for change, growth and new insights, understanding and refinement. All positive descriptions and words of hope.
    The number one tool that I use in ministering to people grieving is to normalize and validate their feelings. I do NOT TRY TO FIX THEM! Any emotion, good or bad, is validated and recognized as normal feelings. I don’t give them scriptures to read but I do let them know that King David in Psalms was a man after Gods heart that showed strong emotions in his despair and grief. The Psalms might be a place to start in the Word for validation. We can’t take away the pain but we can sit with one another in the pain. What a comfort the Holy Spirit is to us as He sits with us in our sorrow and pain.
    Each month I will continue to give you more tools for ministering to others as well as using for yourself. You may be feeling that you have no one to normalize or validate you, but I pray that you will find at least one safe person to share your emotions with.  Grief shared is grief diminished.
    Let me leave you with this excerpt from a book written by Walter Wangerin,Jr. called “Mourning into Dancing”
Sorrow and joy are not separate. Happiness and sadness may be the opposite of one another, but not joy and sorrow. In fact, it is through sorrow that one discovers a calm, abiding indestructible joy. This is the paradox of our faith; joy is forged in sorrow.

*Jan Stockdale is a grateful believer in Jesus and is all about building up the body of Christ for God’s glory. She has served in women’s ministry as a team leader for 12 years. Her passion for helping others comes out of her losses and pain plus being a wife to Tom, a funeral director, for over 30 years. Her role in their ministry to the hurting was aftercare and grief support groups called GriefShare. Much of her material and tools come from being a facilitator of a grief retreat called Spark of Life and the Grief Recovery Institute. She is now a grief coach through SparkofLife.com.
Lastly, much of the insights given in her classes are from H.Norman Wright’s curriculum “Helping Others Recover from Loss and Grief.”