Pastoral Grief Counseling Comes in Many Forms

Whether helping someone cope with the death of a loved one, deal with an empty nest when the last child goes off to school or easing someone through a traumatic event like a job loss, pastoral grief counseling comes in many forms.

"Everyone who’s paying attention in life grieves," said the Rev. David Conley of at Wentzville.

There are differing levels of grief.

"Any kind of change in life can cause grief," Conley said.

Even positive events like a wedding.

"When I work with folks with weddings, I talk about the phrase ‘Good grief,’ which we often say. Getting ready for a wedding involves some good grief, because they will grieve at one level because they are losing their old way of identifying themselves. They will no longer think of themselves, or be primarily, their parents’ children. Now they’re switching, and becoming primarily known as their spouse’s spouse. That’s a big change. That change involves grief for everybody involved--for their parents, for themselves.

"What we used to call cold feet--people getting a little anxious before the wedding--could be another way of talking about grief, denying grief," he said. "We’re losing something--and we’re choosing to lose--some ways of living. Some freedom. So that sort of thing can go toward that. It’s a long way of saying that almost every time I get involved with somebody in a pastoral care situation, when there’s change involved, which is just about every time, then by definition there’s going to be grief involved, too."

Feelings of grief really peak when someone has died or is dying.

"Probably the most intense times are when someone dies," he said. "That loss--the depth of that, the power of that. When I spend the most time with folks is around that particular loss."

The level of grief depends on factors such as if the death was expected versus unexpected as well as the person’s age.

"Regardless of how death comes about, I remind people that grief is a natural response to loss," Conley said. "It’s simply a part of who we are. I remind them that when Jesus was called to the tomb of his friend Lazarus, who had died, that the shortest verse of the Bible is one of the most powerful--'Jesus wept.’ If Jesus is going to grieve the loss of his friend Lazarus, who he’s going to raise up...it tells us that grief is a natural response to loss."

Conley also discusses 1 Thessalonians 4, that "encourages us to grieve, but not like those without hope. One of the things that the resurrection of Jesus demonstrates is that death is not a dead end. Death doesn’t have the last word--God does...That understanding of resurrection is the basis of our hope."

Grief as a rite of passage applies to any kind of loss, Conley said.

"Whenever anyone dies, a way of life or identification is ending," he said.

How well people accept the message of hope in life everlasting depends on the depth of their faith and the circumstances of the death, Conley said.

"I think most folks are able to hear that at one level," he said. "And in the few days following the actual death, it has a different impact than when they begin to spend that time in the wilderness and really wonder, ‘Can I go forward, and what’s life going to be like without this person?’ Working through all that. That’s when it’s hard to (remember) that it’s OK to grieve, but in a context of hope."

At one time, people were encouraged to be happy when someone died because the deceased was in "the presence of Jesus in a more full way," Conley said. "It points to our lack of faith if we’re sad, that sort of thing."

The Bible doesn’t say that, he added.

"It says that we grieve, but not like those who don’t have the hope of resurrection," he said. "It gives us permission to grieve--but our grief can happen in a different way."

The grieving process shouldn’t be denied.

"That does a lot of damage to folks, when we tell them they ought to be happy when they’re not, because we grieve the loss," he said. "I go back to that verse about 'Jesus wept.' If anybody should have been ‘happy,’ it would have been Jesus, because he knew that he was going to resuscitate Lazarus from the dead, for a while. And yet he still grieved. Grief is just a natural and indispensable response to loss. It just happens. I know we do a lot of damage to ourselves if we try and pretend we’re not grieving and push that down inside. Because it’s going to come out in some really unhealthy way."

Sometimes the pastor’s role is to help people understand they aren’t grieving alone.

"I sometimes tell people, especially when the death is unexpected, like a car accident, that of all the hearts that are breaking as a result of this death, this tragedy, God’s heart breaks first," he said. "Because God realizes before anyone else what has happened, and the implications--all the loss, all the grief that’s going to happen. It’s a comforting notion to think that the God who created us also grieves with us."

When Conley became a minister, he knew helping people deal with loss would be part of his role.

"As I think about it now, it’s just the privilege of being with folks at the most intense times of their lives," he said. "And trying to help them sense some meaning in that, and some hope and vision of what can happen, and of the reality of God’s presence that meets them where they are and nurtures them and nourishes them and helps them get through that."

In the context of dying, Conley said, it’s important to remember the grief of the person dying, and "allowing people permission to grieve their own deaths as they come. And again, not as a final lack of faith or anything like that, but as a natural reaction to loss, the loss that they’re going to experience as well."

As a pastor, Conley talks with the person who is dying "about things they want to say and things they want to have happen," he said.

Anyone who has been around people who are dying knows, Conley said, that they can sometimes exert some control, like hanging on until the last child arrives, for instance.

"There is an agenda, for lack of a better word, that the person who is dying also has--things they want to get done and said," he said. "And they can, in some circumstances, put off that moment of death until those things happen, to bring about healing."

At moments like this, Conley can remind someone who is dying that Jesus cried on the cross as he was dying.

"If Jesus can grieve his own impending death, I guess we can, too."