Recovering from Grief

In pastoral care, while it is important to establish and maintain relationships through visitation under ordinary circumstances, it is crucial to have presence during times of change in the members’ lives. And while it is excusable to be absent from a happy event such as weddings or birthdays, it is critical that the pastor be available in times of sadness or distress.

The top five most stressful life events according to the Holmes and Rahe scale (also called the Social Readjustment Rating Scale “SRRS”) are:

1. Death of a spouse: 100
2. Divorce: 73
3. Marital separation: 65
4. Imprisonment: 63, and
5. Death of a close family member: 63.

Each measures over 60 on a scale of 1-100, 100 being most stressful. Except perhaps for (4) which the average pastor seldom encounters, the other four are quite common among church members’ extended families. Pastors have some seminary training in counseling, but unless they specialize in it, usually do not have a lot of expertise besides the Bible in dealing with such issues. One useful tool is the Grief Cycle proposed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who breaks down the grief process into five stages (“DABDA”):

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

The model is applicable to various grief situations e.g. crippling disease, job loss etc., not just bereavement.

Stage 1 is denial, a common defense mechanism to protect oneself from the shock of the bad news. “This can’t be happening to me. It’s not true.”

As reality sets in, the denial changes to anger. Sometimes the “patient” is angry with the dying or deceased loved one who “caused” the pain. Sometimes the anger is directed towards family, friends or strangers who triggered the emotional outburst; sometimes even God. “That’s not fair! I don’t deserve this. You left me!”

To cope with the loss, often an individual will bargain with God, or the person he/she is breaking up with, to salvage the situation. Sometimes the negotiation is only internal. “If only I had been a better person. If only I had treated her better.”

With the realization of the inevitable, the bargaining gives way to depression and despair. The person feels hopeless and helpless, and loses interest in usual activities and isolates himself from others, as everything is pointless. “What’s the use?”

With the passage of time and the support of family and friends, the person finally accepts the loss and the fact that life goes on but will not be the same as before. He/she lets go of the past and faces the future positively, adapting new activities, making new friends and regains hope.

Every person is unique and may not go through all the stages, not always in this sequence but often are. The duration of each stage is also different. The best we can do as friends, or brothers and sisters, or pastors is to be aware of what the grieving person is going through, lend a listening ear or shoulder to cry on, and offer words of encouragement or whatever practical help we can.

We can’t “solve” their griefs, but we can pray with them, because God can. The key to recovery is to turn their thoughts away from themselves and self-pity, and to focus on God the source of all strength and comfort. It helps if they can divert their attention to others, because in helping others they help themselves. Always lead him/her back to God, because He cares, and He comforts in ways we can’t.

Pray for your Missionaries

We had lunch with a missionary friend, who shared with us some of the challenges she’s facing in the field. Since I could not find good graphics for missionary statistics, I borrowed one from the pastoral ministry as many of the problems they are facing are similar. The difference is that for missionaries often the problems are even more acute, as they work in cross-cultural settings with few resources and limited support.

97% of pastors have been betrayed, falsely accused, or hurt by their trusted friends. Our colleague narrated the case of a young pastor who left the pastorate because he was falsely accused by a retired pastor. The saddest part is that the old pastor was the one who encouraged the young man to enter the ministry and mentored him, but grew increasingly narrow-minded and stubborn as he aged. The elderly pastor started well, but he did not finish well. I am less sure about the statistics being that high for betrayal by trusted friends, but have seen many cases of being hurt by “friends”.

94% feel under constant pressure to have a perfect family. Pastors live in a “fishbowl”, and their wife and kids (PKs) are under continual surveillance. The same applies to missionaries, their spouse and MKs.

90% work more than 50 hours a week, yet admit their work is never done and the expectations never end. This is not an exaggeration as my own experience was 62 hours a week, and I was only average.

80% feel discouraged, 78% have no close friends, 70% battle depression. Many hear only criticism from their lay leaders and feel lonely with little or no support. Nearly 2/3 of the 70% experiencing depression or burnout are serious to such an extent that they needed to take a leave of absence from ministry.

You can review the charts for other challenges your missionaries are facing. They have given up on climbing the corporate ladder and earning a comfortable living for their family, and the security of being surrounded by family and friends and having resources at their disposal. Often they face a hostile environment in which neither the language nor the customs are familiar.

If pastors feel discouraged by their apathetic congregation who care more about fun and fellowship than following the Great Commission, so much more for missionaries planting a church in foreign land. Few are those who regularly receive words of encouragement from their churches. Are there bad pastors and missionaries? Of course there are, but in percentage terms probably no more than bad sheep among God’s people. Many are conscientious workers doing the best they can with what little they have. Pray for your pastors and missionaries. They deserve better support than that.