Change & loss

Have been thinking about these this morning.

It appears to me that, generally, stress and grief can be considered 'weak' emotions. i.e. only experienced by weak people or 'bad' Christians. But surely stress is, by definition, the inevitable result of a stress-ful situation. And as I understand it, selling your house; leaving your job; starting a new job; moving to another country, climate and culture, and leaving your family behind all count as classic stressful situations.

So, I shouldn't be surprised if we're feeling a bit stressed.

I also realise that in some senses, its going to be harder on our family and close friends than on us. It's always easier to be the leaver than the left. The lack of our presence mirrors death, and grief is the inevitable result of loss.

So here goes for my list of approaches to stress and grief:

• Recognise it: like with many problems, this is often key, and often missed. Tired, irritable, feeling ill, weepy, unable to select one task from many? Once you realise the cause, you can move on.
• Realise it: you are not alone. God gives us tasks and lets us get into situations, but He never expects us to deal with them alone. As created people, we were never meant to deal with life independently of the Creator. If you realise that the 'weight of the world' is on God's shoulders not yours, it helps a great deal.
• Release it:
  
• Share it: there is a lot of truth in 'a problem shared is a problem halved'. Talk to someone else about how you feel, often they have a much better perspective than you, and even if not, it's comforting [see picture].
• Address it: There are ways to cope with stress and grief - cry, take a break, listen to music, have a quiet time - everyone can tackle it in different ways.
• Give it: pray. Actively go to God and tell Him how you feel, and ask for the resources to be able to deal with the situation. They are all there, we just have to realise we need them.

So there you go.

I feel much better now.

[I promise I won't preach every time!]

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So, if you feel like praying for us - that we would approach our stresses and griefs positively; that our family would also, and that we would recognise the signs in our children and deal with them appropriately.

I'm particularly bad at doing this - I can never separate the naughty from the reasons. Pray that I will see beyond the behaviour, and accept the fact that even if (or because) they don't fully understand what's going on, everything is changing for them too, and they are much less able to process the emotions that result.