The German poet Rilke wrote that “you will never know your angels unless you tame your demons. “

I was working through my grief when God’s gentle voice spoke into my heart. If you reject the pain of grief and run away from it, you will be frozen by it, but the consequence is that you will also be frozen by all other types of emotions, especially love.

This was a real revelation to me. I resisted ‘feeling’ emotional pain because I didn’t know what to do with the grief. Now I understand that if I refuse to feel emotional pain, I am also cutting off the ability to feel good emotions. 

Emotional Pain

Our emotions cannot be isolated from each other. Emotions are linked with each other. One emotion leads to another, and one emotion fills and spills over another. They cannot be separated and neatly packed to be brought out at will. 

For success, we must control our time, work, and emotions too. But this can spill over to our personal life. This happens when we try to control situations or people to help us to make sense of our world.

When I tried to control the feelings of hurt, I created a box for the hurt and placed it there. I closed the lid, thinking the pain was gone. But it wasn’t. It was buried in that box to be resurrected when I least expected it. 

Ignite Your Faith. 

Interestingly, the Bible helps us with grief relief. Scripture uses wonderful metaphors from creation to help us to understand eternal truths. When we engage with creation, we enter God’s frame of reference, igniting our faith. 

We can appreciate and allow creation to engage with us because we see it daily. Even those who live in cities can view the skies, clouds, birds, and insects being God’s creation. You are an integral part of creation, so it can help heal your emotions by connecting with creation mindfully. God calls us to enjoy and be a part of this universal web of life and wonder.

Faith, Relaxation and Peace

In enjoying and engaging in the beauty of creation, we find rest, relaxation and peace. Isaiah 28v 12-13. the Lord told a guy called Ephraim that he would give his people rest to recover from trauma. But they would not listen and suffer the consequence. 

It was a sowing and reaping scenario. God did not do this to them; they did it themselves by not listening to God. God wanted them to heal and rest. The problem is the people did not heal or recover because they refused to rest. And we, too, will not heal and recover from grief if we refuse to rest.

You need physical, mental, and spiritual rest to recover from your grief. Be still. It would help if you had time and space to be present with yourself. Allow your body to rest and allow your mind to rest.

Allow your emotions and spirit to rest; it is all connected. Emotions (the soul realm) and your spirit touch each other. 

Aim for Wholeness

You are a holistic being, which means complete, whole, or total. You’re not a being that can be divided into little compartments. But that is precisely what we try to do to ourselves.

We chop our lives all in little bits because we think we can take better control. But guess what? That is not the way to do it. But it is the way to fracture our lives so that we may never recover. 

So, let’s take the advice of our Lord God, almighty, who loves you. God In Jesus loves you far more than you can ever ask or image and rest so you can heal.

Love Thyself

We often think that self-love is a selfish concept. But you may be surprised to find that it is not. I am not advocating importance; that is something different together. But self-love, respect, and care for oneself are Godly and enable our success.

We must deem ourselves valuable to God, society, family, and friendships. Yet, there is a difference between the biblical view of self-love to that of secular culture.

Mark 12:30-31 ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”

The key here is to love God first- with everything. Then love yourself. In the same way, if you love God and yourself, you will love others.

When you love God first- your love will flow from God and then overflow naturally to yourself and then to your neighbour. Why? Because when you hang out with God, whose attributes of love and grace will, in time, rub off onto you.

Self-Love is God’s Idea

God’s view of self-love is to be found in your identity in Christ. To love God in Christ is to love yourself because you are formed in God’s image. 

Christ died, has risen and ascended and given you authority over sin. Christ transferred his rights and privileges to you. You are a kingdom of priests to our God. In accepting this, you identify with Christ and take on his attributes. You derive your identity from Christ, so rest in Christ’s finished work- this is true self-love.

Self-love in popular culture can be seen as selfish, narcissistic, individualistic, and prideful. Your identity derives from your nature, achievements, experiences, and cultural values. Nothing is wrong with this, but when you compare it to finding your identity in Christ, you realise how limiting it is. And it’s these limits that stop you from releasing into wholeness. 

It would be best to have a sense of self-worth to find lasting relief from grief. Accept that you are loved by God and love God back, thus loving yourself. 

Thank you for reading to the end.

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I have worked internationally with over 40 years of experience, having a Bachelor of Pastoral Counselling and Theology and a Master of Arts in Counselling & Professional Development. BACP Life Coaching Certificate. I currently work as a Christian educator, blogger, author, and grandmother living with my two dogs in Wales, UK.

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?Nothing Good about Grief: Path to Recovery with Psalm 23 after COVID-19 & other losses.

?Psalm 23 Unwrapped: Hope in Difficult Times.