Dr Carol Ministries
Is It OK to Ask WHY?

Is It OK to Ask WHY?

For as long as human beings have tried to survive in a sinful world they have asked WHY. The problem of good and evil is one of the biggest of all questions. As I talk about in my just-released book The Christian’s Journey Through Grief, when you lose a loved one this becomes intensely personal. In the last couple weeks I’ve had so many conversations with people wrestling with whether it’s OK to ask WHY?

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What to do When it’s NOT OK

What to do When it’s NOT OK

What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you? Or is it happening to you right now? Or perhaps the worst is an ongoing challenge that continues to slowly drain the life out of you. Well-meaning people around you may say in various ways, “It will be OK.”

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Transformation Brings Dead Things to Life

Transformation Brings Dead Things to Life

The change true transformation brings is as different as life is from death, white from black, light from darkness. We’re not talking about a haircut and change of clothes, or some new cosmetics. You may have been (or are now) living a life of victimhood, people pleasing, addiction, marriage misery, fear, or any variety of brokenness. But God specializes in resurrection. When He brings transformation it brings dead things to life.

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A Widow’s First Year Alone

A Widow’s First Year Alone

In some sense “widow’s first year alone” is deeply false. I’m not really alone. I never have been, and I never will be.

But grief is hard. My husband died exactly one year ago. I don’t think I’ve ever been through anything so exhausting – not OB-Gyn residency where I’d spend long nights in the hospital with little or no sleep, not the weeks caring for my husband as he became increasingly unable to completely care for himself. They say losing a loved spouse is like losing an arm or a leg. I think it’s more like losing most of who you are.

Grief hurts. In some very real ways I’ve come to terms with the pain, and most of the time I focus more on the future than on the past. But there’s a treasure in grief that you can’t purchase any other way. Words don’t do it justice, and you’d never choose the pain you have to endure in order to get it. But for those of you who are walking a similar journey, perhaps these ideas will help you find your own treasure.

This is in response to some of you who have asked me to share more about my journey as a widow. I’ll try here to share some thoughts about what helped, and God’s place in the journey of grief.

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What to do with Pain as a Widow: 2 Critical Keys

What to do with Pain as a Widow: 2 Critical Keys

There’s no way to make death and grief OK. Death is an aberration in God’s universe, and every time we meet it there is suffering. We try all kinds of things to delay it, ignore it, and pretend we can evade it, but not one of us can escape death. Death hurts – a lot.

Grief is many things; loss, loneliness, anxiety, stress, anger, depression, exhaustion, and so much more. Grief comes in waves, and each one is different than the one before. If you’ve lost someone close to you, even caring friends are unlikely to fully appreciate its deep and long-lasting impact on your mind, heart, and life.

I think the best word to describe the impact of death on those of us left behind is pain. What do you do with the pain as a widow? The death of my husband Al last year wounded me deeply. And yet I’m still standing. Some days are harder than others, but I keep going. Some have asked how I can do so. It’s more than simply knowing God, although that’s important.

Several things have been helpful in my grief journey, but there’s one thing I’ve come to know that has made the most difference. And it is this:

It’s not supposed to not hurt.

You could take out the double negative and it would still be true; this is supposed to hurt. This is not OK. And when we as Christians try to make it OK we cripple our own hearts and miss out on the empowerment God would like to gift us with.   Tweet that.

For those of us going through grief it often seems that if we could just make the pain go away everything would be alright. But that’s not what God promises, at least not yet.

And it’s not even true. If the pain would magically go away, so would the memories, the love, the gift of that person in your life. That is true even if the relationship also included suffering.

Pain means we care. Pain means we loved. Pain means this is not the way God intended our lives and the world to be. Pain means our love was deep, our lives are different because of that loved one’s place in it, and their time on this earth changed us forever. Those are good things. Would we really not want to hurt at the death of someone we cared about so deeply?

It’s not supposed to not hurt.

So what do you do with the pain? How do you go on? Can you even go on?

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