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Exploring the Stages of Grief! Part One.
"If it ain't all right, it ain't the end." These simple words from an old farmer capture the heart of how Christian faith addresses grief – acknowledging its devastating reality while holding onto ultimate hope.
Grief touches us all, whether through death, broken relationships, lost dreams, or shattered hopes. This episode explores grief through both psychological understanding and spiritual wisdom, weaving together the well-known Kübler-Ross model with biblical insights that offer genuine comfort.
We journey through the five stages – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance – sharing powerful observations from hospital rooms, healing ministries, and personal experiences. Rather than presenting grief as a linear journey with a tidy resolution, we discuss how it spirals throughout our lives, requiring revisits and renewed processing at unexpected moments.
The conversation balances practical insights with spiritual depth. When reality feels unbearable, the reminder that "God's got you" provides an anchor. When anger erupts from our wounded hearts, we find biblical permission to express these feelings honestly to God. As depression weighs heavily, Scripture acknowledges our despair while pointing toward hope: "Why, my soul, are you downcast? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him."
What emerges is a compassionate framework for understanding grief that honors both psychological reality and spiritual truth. Grief isn't something we simply "get over" but rather something we learn to carry with God's help. As Elisabeth Kübler-Ross beautifully observed, "People are like stained glass windows - they sparkle when the sun is out, but their true beauty is revealed only when there's light from within."
Listen now to find comfort for your own grief journey or wisdom for supporting others through theirs. And stay tuned for part two, where we'll share more personal stories about how faith creates possibilities even in our darkest moments of loss.
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Coffee Pods, a podcast of the Acorn Christian Healing Foundation exploring what's happening in the world through the lens of Christian healing.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Here we are again, Chris.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about grief today. I think there's a lot of grief around today.
Speaker 2:I think there's a lot of grief around, I think there is, and we so often hear the term good grief, don't we? But what a big statement, good grief. But yeah, we're just gonna chat today about grief, which is something that we've supported a lot of people in through our healing hubs, through training and, chris, I know you've got lots of experience in this topic as well, um, through your hospital chaplaincy, but also just through your ministry in general.
Speaker 1:Uh, so I just want to invite you to bring stories, experiences what they say, that that pastors, ministers, priests, that we hatch, match and dispatch. That's our job, and so the dispatching part often leaves a gap behind. And so there is this very real sense that ministry is very much about helping people cope with loss, actual loss of life, and so hospital work a lot of times, the people who don't make it you end up dealing with all the complexities that come around loss and ministering to the living after the folks have died. Certainly during COVID we were losing so many people every day, and so every day was just a sea of grief. But then there's also grief around other loss. That's not a loss of life. You have loss of hope, loss of dreams, loss of possibilities, people who suddenly find their life has completely changed, or maybe it didn't turn out at all the way they wanted it to, and so they're grieving a dream, a loss of a dream.
Speaker 1:So there's a different kind of grief, but I think the idea of thinking about the stages of grief from Kubler-Ross is helpful in dealing with any grief, whether it be the loss of a loved one, the loss of life or the loss of hope, the loss of whatever you're grieving a marriage that broke down, or children who won't speak to you, or any numbers of things that could be on your list of things you're grieving today.
Speaker 2:So do you think that Kubler-Ross's well stages of grief that are mentioned can be applied to any life loss? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1:There's been some pushback from some people about it being too scientific or too secular. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross I first came into contact with her book on death and dying. I guess it was in the early days of seminary. For me she was a Swiss psychiatrist who ended up in America and a real pioneer of near-death experience studies, as well as writing books on the five stages of grief, which has popularly been known as the Kubler-Ross model, and she delivered this kind of monumental lecture in the 70s at Harvard and that kind of set the course of everybody teaching on grief and loss and pastoral care touched on Kubler-Ross and they required her book as reading. I think it's really good.
Speaker 1:I pulled a quote for today. One of my favorite quotes of hers was people are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within. I just think there's something powerful that she gets um about the human condition and about the importance of kind, of finding harmony with god in a disharmonious time. The other one is a lot of people quote you know. They say the opinions which other people have of you is their problem, not yours and that's actually a Kubler-Ross quote as well, which doesn't often get attributed to her but she certainly was a grounded kind of solid person and I think Christians would do well to read and reflect on on her work, even though some of the overt christianity in it is not quite what some people want and like. But but it's there, it's very applicable, I think.
Speaker 2:I certainly think it's there absolutely, and we've talked before, acorn, about sort of going through the stages of grief and that they might not always be linear that, um, when we because it'd be good for us to just go through the stages together while we're chatting but to sort of set no expectation that that's exactly how it will go for each individual um, and you may have to revisit certain parts of it multiple times, and that's okay, isn't it?
Speaker 1:You know, can we start? Something that I've often used in the hospital is Psalm 34. The 18th verse says the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. And I've used that before at the bedside, because so often people forget that God is faithful even in the bad times and sometimes, when you're in the deep, dark valley, that you really need a reminder and the Bible is filled with reminders of God's faithfulness and that our grief is kind of not just a mental process but it's a spiritual journey. We are in a place where we can ask questions, where we can hurt, where we can cry, where we can seek God.
Speaker 1:And the good thing is and it's something that you know, every time I was in a hospital room with a dying person, I kept saying Jesus teaches us that suffering isn't the end, it doesn't have the last word. You know, like the old farmer that told me, probably 25 years ago, you know he said, chaplain, it'll be all right in the end. If it ain't all right, it ain't the end. And he used to think it's so simple. But there's truth in that hope that there's an ultimate all rightness that is on the horizon for us and if we have hope in Christ, then the temporal things that slow us down, the hurts and the aches and the pains, the grief, are temporal things because we know in the end it'll be all right, because that's the promise of God.
Speaker 1:Sometimes that doesn't help when you're really, really hurting. It seems rather superficial and you kind of think, gosh, yeah, that's very trite and easy for you to say, but how am I going to get through today? I know that down the road it'll be hard, but how am I going to survive today? And that's where working through the stages and being aware of them I think is probably helpful. Maybe we should walk through them and talk about each one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. Let's give this a go. So my screen's doing a funny thing now, right? So the first one that comes up is denial. Um well, I suppose it may be denial, mightn't it?
Speaker 1:but that that's the first, that is it's good that you mentioned that before, that these are not linear, these are just different stages and I've found people bounce from one to the other, to the other and they get frustrated because they said I thought I was working. People bounce from one to the other, to the other and they get frustrated because they said I thought I was working my way from denial to acceptance and you go in a straight line.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I guess that can make you feel all out of sorts if you think okay, I'm experiencing this grief or loss and I'm not even journeying in the way that it says that you should. What does denial?
Speaker 1:look like to you, like if you were with a friend and they called you up and they said you know, my mother died. And what do you think denial looks like in those early days after the death of a friend's mom?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question. I think the thing that pops up straight away would be almost the belief that it hasn't happened, or even how it happened. I think sometimes that would be the thing that could possibly cause denial If you think especially if it's a major incident or an accident the belief of that really happening. But I think you see it in outward displays of behavior. So if I saw a friend who lost their mom living a life that maybe became busier or really getting themselves into stuff, uh, to occupy their mind maybe, or that's how it would feel I would maybe think I wonder if there's some denial there yeah no, I've been in the emergency room.
Speaker 1:When the family shows up and their teenage child has been killed in a car accident and one of the common phrases that you often hear and it's often wailed you know people really are in deep pain and they will scream. You know this can't be real. This can't be real. Somebody wake me up, tell me this is a bad dream. This can't be real. This can't be real. Somebody wake me up, tell me this is a bad dream. This can't be real, this can't be happening.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of an immediate denial, kind of on full display, after the death of someone they really love a husband, a spouse and they'll say, oh, I picked up my phone and I went to call them and then I realized they're not there. And then something in me you know I started crying because I thought I didn't believe they really were gone. Waves of kind of denying no, this can't be. This isn't the way the world is. It's never been like this until now, and so denial is. It's just funny.
Speaker 1:Denial is a powerful thing with lots of things when you know we live in a world where people are putting things in front of their faces every day and they don't want to believe what they see, listen to the voices that they like to fill their ears and they like to kind of embrace the truth that's in front of them. I think grief is like that. Sometimes it hurts too much to just down the barrel of grief and say, oh my gosh. And you know I wrote there's a quote shock closes the mind. It's as though the soul itself is stunned and refuses to deal with with what's happening. You know the the idea of shock just kind of makes your brain go. I'm not going to accept this.
Speaker 1:I refuse to believe this is true and I'm not going to, you know, and if, as a chaplain, when you're in that moment, if you keep talking about like we need to, we need to talk about this and we need to plan the funeral, and I, oh they'll, they'll yell at you and cuss you, and as they should, it's not the time. They're still trying to process the reality of that, and so many times loved ones who see a person in denial will try and hurry them through, and so what they do is they're like, well, let's take a look at the photo album or let's look at the reality. They just kind of want to dip them in the water of reality so that they wake up and stop denying that you need to come to terms with this and they're just like stop that, let me work my way through this grief in my own time.
Speaker 1:My way through this grief in my own time, and um and and so um, you know again. Proverbs 3 says trust in the lord with all your heart and lead not on your own understanding. I mean, that's like so important to come to terms with the fact that that god is holding you. Even when you can't stand on your own feet, even when reality is too hard to grasp, you can say okay, lord, at least I know you got me.
Speaker 1:And that's one of the things in the hospital I used to say a lot is I would lean over to somebody and I would say I'd say God's got you, god's got you, god's not going to let you go. And you may not be answering questions, you may not be giving them strategies to figure out how to cope with this impossible reality that's just been thrust upon them. You know, loss of a child. God's got you, god will not let you go, he will not leave you, he will not forsake you, and a lot of times they would floods of tears, would wrap their arms around you and you would just sit in that moment of truth that God knows pain and God will hold me in my pain.
Speaker 1:And that's quite hopeful.
Speaker 2:It's really hopeful when we share those scriptural truth or life truths with people. It's inviting them to go. Okay, yeah, I am going to bring this to God. I am not going to carry this on my own, so the next one.
Speaker 1:Oh, this one's a toughie.
Speaker 2:Oh, anger we talked about anger the other day, didn't we?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think Callum was messing around with the intro to the podcast and he had me saying I'm angry today on the intro.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I was like I don't know if that's the message I want to give every time people listen to the podcast. But anger is tough. A lot of times when we stop being in denial and we start facing it, then we start getting mad and we say I'm going to get even. You know, I'm angry, you know and I'm not just going to ask the questions of you know why did this have to happen? But who's at fault and who am I going to sue? And I've seen people shift a lot of times very quickly into the anger part. You know, because we've got to blame somebody. There's got to be somebody at fault, even when the death is as simple. As you know my own grandmother, I remember she died peacefully of a heart attack, but in her home on the couch, and I remember the kind of knee-jerk reaction in me was why did this have to happen? You know you're annoyed about it. And then I watched my own father's reaction to it and there was an element of denial that quickly shifted into anger.
Speaker 2:And he was just mad.
Speaker 1:This isn't fair. This is not fair. And I've seen that happen a lot too in the hospital, where people punch walls and we had people rip bathroom stalls off and we had a nurse get threatened one time because all she was doing was telling the news, you know, and all of a sudden somebody tried to attack her like it was her fault and she actually was the one that tried to save the life of the person and she came in and said I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:We did everything we can and this person attacked her. Because sometimes there's anger it has nowhere to go and you'll see families fight each other, you'll see people start arguing and bad behavior. In working through grief there's a whole lot of opportunity for people to say I'm really sorry. You know, I was so mad the other day and I it wasn't your fault, but but it's. It takes a real grown-up to kind of wake up and say this is just me grieving, I'm, I'm hurting and I know I'm angry and I shouldn't bark at you like I do, but it's just I'm hurting and it's part of my grief.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. And it can be hard for those of us who are on the other end of it, and it's where we have to also take that Proverbs verse, isn't it, and say actually, I'm going to trust in God as.
Speaker 1:I journey with the person so I don't get angry, and he's just sitting there imagining old Job, this man who had such a miserable world, and when he said why didn't you just kill me when I was born? You know why didn't I just die when I came out of the womb? And because he lived this long life of misery. And so I think a lot of people have that same kind of fist shaking at God. There's a movie called the Apostle which is a Robert Duvall classic. A lot of people haven't seen it.
Speaker 1:It's about a Pentecostal preacher and there's a wonderful scene where the camera is out in the yard looking out in the middle of the night from the front yard and or I should say front garden, since I am in England right now but you see this illuminated man ranting and raving in an upstairs bedroom shaking his fist at God, and he's having this moment of just absolute anger. You know why? Why are you doing this? To me, lord, it's so relatable because I think so many times when things get yanked from us, taken away from us, when it doesn't work out, that our expression of anger toward God is quite, it's a visceral thing and it's also quite freeing, I think. But so many people say, oh, we should never be angry. We should never be angry, but I think that anger is normal. But I don't think we can just let it explode. I think you've got to sort of channel it constructively and I think ultimately you have to offer that anger to God. I think that's the only place to go with our anger.
Speaker 1:Otherwise it will lead you to sin and it'll lead you to do bad things and you'll be doing regrettable things with your anger and outbursts and shouting at people. But certainly a stage, one of Kubler-Ross stages, it's a valid one.
Speaker 2:I was just thinking, as you were talking about letting out anger, that actually God is the best place and person to let that out. I know a lot of people would be like you can't get angry with God, you can't shout at God, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:But actually.
Speaker 2:He is the one person who you can just let it all out to. I like the thought that we can go to Him with our anger.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you see Pentecostal people worship and they get so excited and so joyful and they're just enraptured with this idea of God's presence. Why aren't we just as emotional when we're hurting and crying and just feeling? We want to just shake our fist at the sky and say why, lord, you know, and it's just as valid an expression of the relationship to God. And again, anger. We said it's not a linear process. I mean, I've seen people go from, you know, from denial to bargaining, to anger, back to depression, back to anger, to anger again. I mean, it's one of these weird things that you can't just say.
Speaker 1:This is, I remember people say well, chaplain, can you tell me how my grief is going to work out? Because I'd like to plan it. You know, I'd like to sort of plan my schedule for the next two months so that I know when I'm going to be in the anger part, so that I can make sure I don't hurt anybody's feelings. And you're like it doesn't work that way. It just might be in the middle of a Ross department store and somebody takes a clearance item that you were reaching for and then you just explode on him and say how dare you not be aware that I was reaching for, you know, and you're like. That has nothing to do with that piece of clothing, it's. It's not about that. It's about the fact that you got fire in you. It's a volcano looking for a place for the lava to go out.
Speaker 1:And that's what anger is in the stages of grief. Good counseling is a great way to take your your anger and sit with another person and then they can. It's like an old fashioned pressure cooker where you can release the valve on the top and slowly release some of that pressure, because otherwise you've got a bomb that's just getting you know more and more powerful. And then all of a sudden little little explosions happen and you're like where did that come from? You're bottling it down inside yourself.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, you're hurting more controlled as in like we will control this but safe environment to also let those feelings be explored.
Speaker 1:What about bargaining because that's Because that's the next stage in her little list. Bargaining is an interesting one because, again, I've seen so many people. They do the kind of blame game and they say, if you hadn't bought him the car, he wouldn't have been speeding and he wouldn't have wrecked and he wouldn't have died. And so they bargain about everything, um, or they, you know they'll say, you'll say it next to a hospital bed of somebody who's comatose or someone who's been declared brain dead. You know they'll, their prayers will be at Lord. If you, if you will let me, uh, if you'll let this person live, then I promise I'll do X, y and Z. And they began bargaining with God.
Speaker 1:And I don't think it works that way. I don't think our relationship with God works that way. I don't think healing works that way. I don't think if somebody comes to a healing hub and they say, well, I'll make a deal with you, you know, if you'll pray for healing, then I promise that I will give 100 pounds to the next three people that I meet on the street and you go. Well, it's not a relationship like that, where you, you think that you can manipulate God through behavior changes. Hopefully, as you, as God touches your life, it changes everything, it changes your behavior. But the idea of bargaining in the midst of grief, I think is is a big thing and I think that's why Kubler-Ross put it in her, in her list.
Speaker 2:I think so. It's obviously being expressed. I was just thinking as well because God I think so it's obviously being expressed. I was just thinking as well because God we see he has compassion for people in like biblical stories and in life we see he has empathy for people, but that's different to us. Bargaining with him, isn't it? Because that would be us trying to maybe manipulate a situation for it to have a different outcome. I think with bargaining, whereas he can, still, he has the power, he has the ability to heal somebody. But I think when we come in and we start bargaining with him, that's just not how the relationship works between us and him.
Speaker 1:And I think that's what she was saying that there's something naturally that happens in human beings, that as we're processing what's happened to us with grief, that we naturally find ourselves in a place of bargaining. It may be very short for some people, but we sort of pass through this place where our minds start thinking can I make a deal with you? God you know, can.
Speaker 1:I make a deal to make this go away, and it's just sort of a natural thing to be aware of when you start thinking about the stages of grief. A lot of people don't think that they go. Oh, that would never happen to me.
Speaker 1:And then when it's happening to them, they go. Oh, why am I doing that? Well, it's because it's kind of a natural flow of grief that you get to a place where your prayer starts looking like a Tesco shopping list rather than it being you being present before God. I think there's an old quote from Mahatma Gandhi that says prayer is not asking, it is a longing of the soul. We want our prayer to really just be an opening of us up to God's pouring himself into us, and bargaining is kind of counter to that because it starts feeling like a manipulation of the divine and I don't think that's good and I think that's why you have to kind of work your way through it as you're grieving.
Speaker 2:And then depression.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness. This one's relatable to a lot of people and I know many of us have struggled with depression. But Kubler-Ross tells us that depression is part of the stages of grief.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tells us that depression is part of the stages of grief. Yeah, and again it makes you then go oh, it's okay to feel that way, even though it's really difficult. You're not having to try and say no, it's you know.
Speaker 2:Again that might be denial, is denying that you're depressed from it and I don't know, but I mean the one of the big verses that we hear and it is so, so helpful from Psalm 42,. Is why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
Speaker 1:That's such a good verse.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:Wow, put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's common that we all struggle with emptiness and despair and hopelessness, and grief is the time when it pops out.
Speaker 1:You know, I know, when I get the news that someone I love dearly has died, it doesn't take long for me to find myself just kind of going oh, it's just this weight and this heaviness, and it's in that moment that I have to rediscover my plumb line. And you know, and I think it's it is fair to say it's important to distinguish between what is normal sadness and normal grief from clinical depression, because you know, there is a thing called clinical depression and it's something that does need attention and help, and some people need medicine to help with that. This is kind of situational depression that's related to the loss of something important to our loved one, related to the loss of something important to our loved one, and so she puts it on her list, not as a diagnosed condition of depressive disorder, but she says all of us, regardless, will struggle with the depression associated with the grief, and so that's why it's on her list and I think we've reached the last stage.
Speaker 2:We have the word, it feels hopeful. It's acceptance. That's the fifth stage of acceptance, but it's important to know that that isn't forgetting or getting over, is it? It's more about reaching a place of peace and finding that we are trusting God's plan for our lives and for the people and things we've lost. Finding hope beyond grief, isn't it really?
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean. Another quote from Elizabeth Kubler-Ross that I found is there is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub. How about that Relatable and so grounded that she would relate to people in that way to say you know, you can actually find the peace of God in a bathtub with bubble bath and a couple of candles. And you know, there's something about finding a way to steal away and find God in the present, which also redirects us to more of a future focus.
Speaker 1:I think acceptance is a is an interesting thing, because I've seen people who get to the place of acceptance and then revert back. It's one of these weird things where they'll be like well, I've worked out my grief, now I'm all sorted, I've accepted the reality that this loss happened, and then, on the first anniversary of the loss, you get a phone call and they say what's going on? They say, well, I'm having a hard day. Well, why is that? Well, I've been trying to bargain with God in my prayers and I'm a little bit depressed and I'm kind of ticked off because somebody cut me off in traffic and you're going, oh dear, so you're, you're cycling again, but but life is about that.
Speaker 1:Grief doesn't just go away, it's like a spiral. It, it, um. It reappears in different ways and strange ways and pokes its head out. And because loss is real and we revisit loss, loss doesn't go away. Um, you know, we have to know, we have to find a way to live functionally in the world, carrying our brokenness with us. And that's where I think my Christian faith and organizations like ACORN are really quite helpful to keep people on the rails and to help.
Speaker 1:You know as well as good counselors and psychotherapists and um and psychiatrists and and um and good medicine when, when it's necessary.
Speaker 2:Um to help people through grief. Absolutely Well, that's, and I think we should do this as a two part series. Um, so this could be part one and then we could come back. That sounds good.
Speaker 1:I'd love to do part two and maybe we can talk about a real powerful mentor of mine and I can talk about my own grief and be a little personal.
Speaker 2:But I think maybe the way to end.
Speaker 1:Part one is to let's see I'm thinking I've pulled a couple of scriptures out here. Psalm 147 is still so important he heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds and the idea that when I'm hurting, when I'm grieving, that I have a God who will literally just like the good Samaritan, god who will literally just like the Good Samaritan, he will pick me up out of the ditch and he will take care of me when I'm kind of at my lowest place. Or Matthew 5, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. How many times at funerals do we say these words to remind us that God is actually engaged?
Speaker 1:in loving us in the middle of our grief. So I think that this is a good spot to end part one and then we'll have a slightly more personal maybe part two, and I can tell some funny football stories about a guy named Norman Lineberg, who was one of the greatest coaches of all time in America American football coach and I can share with our audience some stories about this fantastic football coach, who was a dear friend who died this week, and we can talk about how someone's life and someone's grief can create possibility for a world that sure needs to hear, hope and love, and that's what this?
Speaker 1:guy was all about, and I hope that's what Acorn is all about.
