Focus in the Fire: Counseling through Sorrow

Pain, sorrow and ultimately death are inevitable in this life. For that reason, Pastor Randy Gilmore and Hamilton Hills Baptist Church are sponsoring a Fires of Sorrow Conference. The conference is designed to help hurting people and to equip others to assist those who are grieving, sorrowing or dealing with loss.

My wife, Betsi, and I are speaking from the experience of the death of our twenty-four year old daughter. The overwhelming emotions we endured forced us to make some Biblically principled choices to prevent us losing hope. We are focusing on Psalm 18, where we see the Psalmist’s description of God’s healing in his life after he had gone through painful fires of grief, enemy attacks and disappointment. He too had to make some very deliberate choices.

In our seminar we will be sharing four of the feelings we personally battled and the principles we had to choose to embrace. In counseling people who are in mourning, ultimately you want to help move them from the desperate feelings of emotional hopelessness to the solid principles of the Word of God.

Feelings # 1: Shock and Numbness!

When God chose to take our daughter we were literally overwhelmed with “Whys.”  For the first few days, in shock and numbness, we cried out over and over, “Why, God?  Why?” 

Principle # 1:  Choose to Focus on God’s PERSON (vs. 1-6)

We could easily edit David’s first words here in these verses in this way: “I choose to love You, O Lord, my strength.” We had to begin focusing on “Who” not “Why.”

Feelings # 2: Separation and Loneliness!

Separation and loneliness were like a darkness that smothered us. Our daughter loved to communicate frequently through a variety of ways. The deadly silence after her passing was almost unbearable. 

Principle # 2: Choose to Focus on God’s Comfort (vs. 16-18)

God literally rescued us from a “sentence of silence” just as the verses describe. We found release from our prison of loneliness as our focus turned from ourselves to Him.

Feelings # 3: Frustration and Anger!

It is good to know that we serve a God who is big enough not to be intimidated by our finite pettiness. We got angry with God and we told Him so. He merely drew us closer to Himself until we were embraced in His love. 

Principle # 3: Choose to Focus on God’s Security (vs. 27-31)

God is our Rock and refuge from even our own terrible anger that would consume us. His strong arms of love and peace are our security.

Feelings # 4: Emptiness and Hopelessness!

Probably the most searing emotions we faced were thoughts of “what could have been,” and “what should we have done.” Both of these thoughts produced intense hopelessness. 

Principle # 4: Choose to Focus on God’s Restoration (vs. 32-39)

Our hope had to be in God alone. We had to keep the “Big Picture.” As depression and hopelessness tried to claim our lives, we turned to God’s healing Word, looking forward to His healing and restoration.

* I have placed a bibliography dealing with grief, pain and loss in the resources section of my website for your personal use.

* Next Thursday (May 3, 2012), I will be blogging based upon my book Where Was God When…?, which is now available in the Kindle Edition.