Grieving the Loss of Living person

Loss and living. These two words don’t seem to go together right? But today I want to bring hope to those out there that have ever grieved the loss of person who is still alive.

For some, you may not understand this. How can you grieve someone who is living? Well there are different types of grieving that a person goes through.

The first example is grieving a person who is dying from an incurable disease. Many times, doctors explain this as a blessing and a curse. Family and loved ones can have time to say their goodbyes and make some long-lasting memories before that loved one goes to their enteral rest. This is still a difficult process because the person who is having to say goodbye must imagine a life without their loved one.

The next example is grieving the loss of a living person. How is this even possible or why would anyone want to do this? Well no one ever really “wants” to do this. I myself went through this but it was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through.
You see, when someone you love is living, breathing and walking around this earth, but they have chosen to step away from you or not be part of your life anymore, it creates a void. This void is hard to explain. It’s a heartache that makes you feel like you can’t breathe sometimes. You reminisce about all the good times you had with this person, but now for some reason or another, they have chosen to walk away.

You might even call this emancipation. 

Emancipation is a word I heard in the late 90’s. An article I was reading was a bout a young girl wanting to divorce her parents because she felt they didn’t support her in her dreams. Come to find out later, this young girl wanted her freedom to do as she pleased. So “emancipation” was the answer and she won her case.

This later caused a huge strain between her and her parents because she realized she loved them but because she was going through her “teenage years” and “I know everything stage” she came to realize that she truly needed her parent’s wisdom and influence.
She couldn’t understand why (when she came to her senses) they weren’t running to open their door and welcome her back with open arms.

Well the interview with the parents was simple. They had to “grieve the loss” of their living daughter. She had stopped calling them. She never came by. She was doing her own thing. She went to college, got married and had children. She was living her life (literally 1 hour from where her parents lived). But she got what she wanted right? She divorced her parents.

All these years her parents were crying and praying for her to return. They questioned their parenting skills and decisions they made when she was a child. They went to counseling to find closure. They backtracked, replayed all their decisions and after several years of therapy, they realized something.

They weren’t bad parents after all. They were just human parents and they made their share of mistakes.  They fought and argued like most parents did, but they never found a good enough reason that their daughter would want to “divorce” them.

Although this sounds simple, it brought a huge healing to them. So, when they didn’t open their doors right away to run to their daughter, something strange happened. Their daughter got upset. She was ready to come home. She realized she did need them, and she wanted them to speak into her life and her children’s lives.  She needed them now.  

While the bible speaks about the prodigal son (Luke 15: 11-32) , and the story is powerful, it only explains the part where the father runs to meet his son who got “lost” to the world. The bible doesn’t explain the years of what the father must have felt and how the loss of his son was grieving him.

 Now in the end the father forgives the son and runs to welcome him home. But his feelings of loss were very real.
I can’t say whether the parents ever let their daughter back in, unfortunately the story never said. The parable of the prodigal son, well we know how that ends.

But today if you are in that place where you have grieved the loss of a son/daughter, mother/father, friend/relative or someone you really loved who is still alive but walked away; I want to tell you there is hope and there is forgiveness.

God is in the restoring business. I don’t mean restoring just the broken relationship. He wants to restore the broken heart that never mended during the time of mourning and loss.

When a person dies, you must grieve to process your pain. But when the person is still alive, its harder for your heart to heal because of all the conflicting feelings of “WHY”.

The bible tells us God binds up the wounds of the brokenhearted. (Psalms 147:3)
Today, God wants to also heal those who are crushed in spirit. (Psalms 34:18)

Loss can crush us. But God is the restorer of the heart. As you begin to walk out the process of forgiveness, let me leave you with a nugget of hope.

Do not allow the grieving and loss to leave you in hole of emptiness. The enemy wants you to feel hopeless about this situation. It may take a while but keep praying and processing the pain. I don’t mean keep beating yourself up. Forgive yourself, forgive the person and live your life because you still have a purpose and calling to fulfill.  

~Broken Beautiful Ministries