Grace, Guilt, and Grief
Recently, I was with a woman who had lost her husband a few years ago. She was apologizing for some tears that she wiped away as she expressed some sweet thoughts about her husband.
As I listened, I wondered if sometimes guilt tags along with our grief. Feeling bad about grieving seems dichotomous. This is a tender place to be; grieving because we loved someone who is no longer here and believing we “should” no longer feel something and then feeling guilty because we feel bad.
In our culture and even in our churches, grief is uncomfortable. It’s something to get over and move on. Counterculture is the healthy promotion that grief is a normal response to a loss of a loved one. Grieving is a process to move through and feel the sorrow, express the sadness, and find ways to manage a different life than planned.
Guilt can show up in several ways. Often when there is a lingering condition before loss, family members feel guilt for not doing enough or thinking they failed in doing all they could to make their loved one comfortable. We did the best we could and all we could for the one we loved.
Other times guilt shows up in a moment of laughter or enjoyment and we recognize we are not grieving in that particular moment and we feel guilty for feeling good. We are allowed to find moments of joy in our pain-filled journey.
And then the one I referred to earlier; we feel bad for feeling our feelings in front of others and get on the merry-go-round of “shoulding” ourselves. We can feel what we feel and give grace to ourselves in those moments.
Dr. Kenneth J. Doka, professor and author says, “Guilt is a heavy burden in grief. We do not need to carry guilt forever on the journey with loss.”
Grief stands alone as a response to loss. Guilt, however, can pass through, and be shown the exit door where we watch it go. We can walk with grace, not guilt, as we allow ourselves to grieve.
