Letting Go of Disappointments and Painful Losses Page 5

  When we have to let go of something important to us, we need to find ways to open some release valves, as we would on a pressure cooker, to let some of our emotional tension out in constructive ways.

  One safe place to start is to talk to God—to tell Him about our hurt, our anger, our disappointment, and our sadness. Not for His sake, but for ours. He already knows the secrets of our hearts.

  I’m not talking about prayers consisting of fancy, pious, religious words. I’m talking about authentically sharing our thoughts and feelings with God as we would with our most trusted friend. Whispers in the dark, cries from a lonely heart, sighs of confusion, and fumbling utterances offered to God will find their way to His ears. Some of the best prayers have more feelings than words.

  Prayer is more than words.

  It’s listening, seeing, feeling.

  NORMAN VINCENT PEALE

  I’ve seen powerful breakthroughs when people invite the healing presence of God into their place of brokenness. Some of the most effective therapy occurs when people talk to God in prayer. As they share their pain with Him, healing happens. When they have suffered terrible losses and gross injustices, logic and pat answers don’t defuse their pain. Releasing their grief does.

  I’ve seen it in my own life. The morning after our son was diagnosed with Down syndrome, I consulted with a physician in my hospital room. Still reeling from the news of my baby’s condition, I looked at him and asked, “How did this happen?”

  He did what he was supposed to do. He gave me the scientific explanation for Down syndrome and Nathan’s heart problems and tried his best to comfort me. I’ll never forget his closing comment: “Mrs. Vredevelt, it was just a chromosomal anomaly, a genetic mishap, a mistake.”

  I know that this man sincerely felt bad for me and that he wanted to alleviate any guilt I might have felt at the time. The “whys” of medical crises are sometimes as baffling to doctors as they are to patients. I was grateful for the compassion I saw in his eyes.

  But when he left, I didn’t know what to do with the information he’d given me.

  A mistake? Whose mistake?

  I propped myself up with a few pillows and sat there in a stupor, overwhelmed by a mishmash of thoughts. Defending myself against the pain, I intellectualized the ordeal. Okay, Pam, this is how it works. You live in an imperfect world, and your body isn’t perfect. Your body made the mistake. Or perhaps the mistake occurred during the process of conception.

  Logic didn’t heal the pain. It rarely does.2

  No, it’s when we are open and honest about our thoughts and feelings in safe relationships that healing comes. First Peter 5:7 says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” The word cast is a very aggressive term that means “to throw off.”

  Intellectualizing and using logic as a defense against my pain didn’t facilitate healing. It was only as I openly shared my thoughts and feelings with God—and purged the pain in my soul within the safety of His healing presence—that comfort came.

  In the Psalms we see that David mastered the art of throwing his pain onto the Lord in prayer. He didn’t censor his feelings. He didn’t carefully weigh his words. He didn’t try to pretend things were fine when they were awful. Nothing was sugarcoated. David was brutally honest about his feelings as he poured out the depths of his heart to God:

  Open your ears, God, to my prayer;

  don’t pretend you don’t hear me knocking.

  Come close and whisper your answer.

  I really need you.…

  My insides are turned inside out.…

  I shake with fear,

  I shudder from head to foot.

  “Who will give me wings,” I ask—

  “wings like a dove?”

  Get me out of here on dove wings;

  I want some peace and quiet.…

  Haul my betrayers off alive to hell—let them

  experience the horror, let them

  feel every desolate detail of a damned life. I call to

  God; God will help me.

  At dusk, dawn, and noon I sigh

  deep sighs—he hears, he rescues.…

  Pile your troubles on God’s shoulders—

  he’ll carry your load, he’ll help you out.

  He’ll never let good people

  topple into ruin.

  PSALM 55:1 – 2, 4 – 6, 15 – 18, 22, THE MESSAGE

  Did you know that two-thirds of the Psalms are songs of lament? Time and again we see a pattern in this very human book of poetry: David comes to the Lord in anguish and vents his deepest feelings, but by the end of the Psalm, he sees things from a fresh perspective of hope.

  Prayers of ventilation will allow you to release your feelings constructively. Journaling can help too. You can write uncensored thoughts, free-flowing feelings, and letters to the Lord about what’s going on in your inner world.

  And give yourself permission to cry. Don’t try to keep a stiff upper lip. God gave us tear ducts for a reason. Tears cleanse the soul. Whenever I counsel people who are grieving, I encourage them to carve out times when they can have a good, hard cry and express their sadness fully. But I also encourage them to place some limits on that expression. I suggest that after some deep sobbing, they make themselves a cup of tea, take a bath, go for a walk, or scrub their kitchen floor to purposely divert themselves from their pain for a while. The key is full expression—within limits.

  Why limits? Because we can work ourselves into a neurotic mess if we give full vent to negative feelings for hours at a time. One of the reasons therapy sessions are limited to about fifty minutes is because if they are much longer, clients get weary and recovery work is less than effective. Freedom with containment is the key.

  I saw a refreshing authenticity in Nancy as she picked up the pieces of her life after learning of her husband’s affair. She had suspected the betrayal for quite some time but discounted the warning signs and shamed herself for being suspicious. His confession blew her world apart. Resentment and bitterness smothered her. She seriously wondered if she would ever be able to dig her way out from under these realities. I’ll let Nancy tell her story:

  I remember reading the Bible and wondering where God was in this mess. I read stories of God’s healing and grace and thought, What a crock! These words must have been written by people who were out of touch with reality.

  It was hard for me to trust anyone, much less God. I did a fine job of protecting myself from Him and everyone else with a shield of angry detachment. The only one I allowed anywhere near my heart was my best friend, Karen.

  Karen stayed close in this dark valley. She prayed for me each day. She talked about God’s love and about her high hopes for my future. She listened to me. She cried with me. She did not judge me. And she didn’t tell me what to do.

  During our separation, Doug visited the children periodically for a few hours at a time. Our kids were broken by the sorrow of our fragmented marriage and the uncertainty of the ongoing separation. I was barely able to function under the stress of the changes. I think the only reason I kept going was because I felt the deep need to relieve the children’s pain. It was strictly for their sake that I reached out to others and persevered.

  These were dark years that caused me to take inventory. I took a long, hard look at me. I remember crying in a heap on the bathroom floor, asking God to change me. I begged Him for strength to cope with the bone-crushing weariness that came from my unrelenting efforts to hold our family together. Eventually the blinders were lifted from my eyes, and I could see that I was absolutely powerless over Doug’s choices.

  I also asked God to heal the pervasive suspicion and fear that had consumed me. Healing began when I was completely honest and said, God, I don’t trust You, but I see people who do and I want to. Even though fear distorted my picture of reality, I knew deep down that God was the only one who had the answers that I could not find within myself.

  Do not let it be imagined that one must rema
in silent about one’s feelings of rebellion in order to enter into dialogue with God. Quite the opposite is the truth: it is precisely when one expresses them that a dialogue of truth begins.

  PAUL TOURNIER

  For several years, though, it seemed as if I had lost my way with God. I continued to wonder if there was something terribly wrong with me and if somehow Doug was justified in his choices. I filed for divorce and remained silent about Doug’s infidelity. People questioned me. They asked why I couldn’t forgive him. Surely, they thought, we could have worked things out.

  But they didn’t know the whole story, and frankly, I didn’t think it was any of their business. Trying my best to go on without Doug, I slammed the door shut on the guilt over filing for divorce and the unresolved grief over losing our family.

  I had long, angry talks with God. I raged. I asked Him where He was when my husband was betraying me. Why hadn’t He protected me and the children from this abuse? I told Him how desperately unsafe I felt in this God-forsaken world. I wondered about the next shoe He planned to drop.

  All the while, God listened patiently and continued sending blessings that were difficult for me to see through the dense fog of my grief.

  I was so overcome with the injustice the children and I had suffered that I wanted Doug to pay. Vengeance seemed like a practical and logical solution. If I just opened my mouth and told all, I could have destroyed him.

  But something constrained me. Actually, Someone constrained me. The Spirit of God began to speak to me about letting go of my bitterness. Everywhere I turned, somebody was saying something about forgiveness. The lady on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The song on the radio. The preacher at church. My friend on the phone. They were all delivering the same message: “Forgive.”

  Forgive? I cried to God. Impossible! How do you forgive people who don’t deserve forgiveness?

  “You pray for them.”

  But, God, I don’t want to pray for Doug. I don’t want to pray for his sideline attractions. They betrayed me. I will hate them forever!

  “Not if you pray for them.”

  It was about the time that this war was going on in my head that Karen gave me Dr. James Dobson’s book When God Doesn’t Make Sense, which explores the subject of suffering unjustly. As I read, the doctor brought me face-to-face with a set of choices. I could either continue my descent into bitterness and resentment, or I could turn to God. Neither choice seemed very appealing.

  I wrestled with these ideas for months before I was able to bring myself to tell God that I couldn’t let go on my own. A gratifying sense of power came from holding on to my anger and resentment. There was a part of me that wondered if I would crumble if I released it. I needed God to give me supernatural strength to do what He had asked me to do: pray for those who had betrayed me.

  Moments of fleeting relief came as I journaled my uncensored feelings in a daily diary. Revealing the most intimate details of my life helped purge the pain. I read about a man named Job who was able to put words to the anguish I was feeling. I found solace in his life story and in the fact that God was the one who had the final word in his life. Not his friends. Not his family. Not his acquaintances. It gave me hope to know that God’s last word in Job’s life was one of total restoration.

  It is true that the injustices I suffered from my husband’s sexual addiction stole my sense of worth and personal dignity. But looking back, I can see that the bitterness I hung on to for several years robbed me of the ability to heal and move forward. A turning point came when I realized that I could not afford to leave unchecked the hatred simmering in my heart.

  I had to acknowledge that what happened to me happened. I was not crazy. My children and I bore the scars of a terrible injustice. But denial was not the answer. Neither was amnesia or sugarcoating the truth. I had to face the facts and grieve the reality of the injustice if I was ever going to be able to move beyond it. I knew I couldn’t keep trying to cover the cracks in my heart for the rest of my life.

  Somewhere along the line, I heard someone say that if we all lived by the rule “an eye for an eye,” the whole world would be blind. It reminded me of the many mistakes I had made in my life and of God’s unending compassion and grace to forgive me. How could I not forgive when God had forgiven me of so much? I made a conscious choice to let go of my quest for justice for Doug and the women who had betrayed me.

  I felt nothing. But I did what I knew God had told me to do months before. I prayed for them and released them into God’s hands. I decided that from that day forward it wasn’t my job to set them straight or to make them pay. Their wrongs were between them and God. My energies were going to be focused on my own health and the well-being of my children.

  To this day I have moments when the past, with all of its hurts and memories of failure, sweeps in like a raging river and leaves me gasping for air. I visit the pain every so often, but I no longer live in it. I am now one of those stories of hope that I used to read about while consumed with anger.

  I’m convinced that nothing will kill a woman’s spirit faster than holding on to resentment. And nothing will dissolve bitterness more effectively than choosing to let go and forgive. Forgiveness doesn’t come easily, and believing it does will likely ensure that we never forgive. If we call a spade a spade, forgiveness is often unattainable from a human standpoint. But when you factor in the divine, all things are possible. God can supernaturally empower us to release our death grip on rage and let it go. We simply have to say, God, I’m willing to be made willing.

  I told the Lord several years ago that I was willing. And from then on I began to sense that God was touched by my pain, that He had taken up my cause, and that He held both me and Doug in His hands. He would have the final say in both of our lives. Eventually I embraced the peace that only God could give. The pain of abandonment will probably never go away, because we suffered many severe losses. But the girls and I have moved on with our lives, and while we grieve our losses, we are no longer controlled by them. There is life beyond Doug. And it’s a good life, blessed by God.

  If we want to snip the soul ties that keep us in bondage …

  If we want to take back the dignity that has been stolen from us …

  If we want God to heal the holes in our souls …

  If we want to douse the flames of bitter revenge …

  If we want something good to come out of something very, very bad …

  … we must take the steps of healing.3

  We must recognize that what is, is and not avoid or rationalize away our losses. We must relinquish control to God with full awareness that He is God and we are not. And we must experience and release our feelings. Feeling is healing.

  Life requires us to let go, over and over and over again. Letting go doesn’t eliminate our loss, but it reduces unnecessary suffering. As we do our part, God will always do His. When we release our grip and open our hands to Him, we give Him a new place to deposit whatever we need to move us forward in our healing.

  Pain and pleasure are opposites: when you share grief, you decrease it; when you share joy, you increase it.

  ANONYMOUS

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  REVISIT

  THE

  BASICS

  I BUCKLED MYSELF INTO THE SEAT, GLANCED OUT THE window of the plane, and checked my watch. So far, so good. Wewere departing on schedule. The flight attendant welcomed usaboard and gave the usual instructions. “In the event that thecabin loses pressure, an oxygen mask will fall from the compartmentabove you. Slip the mask over your nose and mouthand breath normally. If you are traveling with children, or someoneis seated next to you who needs help, put your own maskon first and then help others.”

  I had heard the statement hundreds of times before, but this time something about it struck a dissonant chord in me. The thought crossed my mind that my natural reaction wouldbe to want to help my children first. No doubt that’s why theygive the instructions. The authorities are well aware of a parent’
sinstinct to protect, and they also know that a child requires lessoxygen than an adult. If adults pass out from oxygen deprivation, they aren’t going to be of any help to children.

  Now and then I observe a paradox among those whoserve others: caretakers who don’t take care of themselves. Many people I talk with in my counseling office or at conferences regularly place their own needs at the bottom of their to-do list. The job, the boss, the kids, the spouse, the community, the church—everyone else gets the best they have to offer. The caretakers get the leftovers, as if everyone’s life except theirs deserves attention and support. The tragic result is that these caring folks end up living life on the verge of burnout.

  You will break the bow if you keep it always bent.

  GREEK PROVERB

  While talking with Carmen during a therapy session, I learned that she had been the primary caretaker of her ailing parents for ten years. She nursed her father for four years before he died. Shortly after he passed on, her mother had a stroke, and Carmen spent the next six years attending to her needs. Not surprisingly, after her mother’s death, Carmen felt like she was “caving in.” The loss of her beloved parents was intensely painful, but exhaustion further complicated the grief. When I asked Carmen about the nature of some of her own needs, her eyes glazed over into a blank stare. “I don’t know,” she sighed. “I really haven’t thought about it.” Together, we set out to help her think about it and learn the basics of healthy self-care.

  Grief is hard work. It takes emotional energy to let go of something near and dear to our hearts. When we’re processing a painful loss, it’s important to give ourselves permission to downshift into survival mode, to streamline our activities and conserve our mental and emotional resources. We typically don’t have much of an emotional buffer when we’re in the throes of a major life adjustment. That’s why self-care is critically important.