Should Christians Go to Grief Counseling?
- Becky Harling Author
- Updated Apr 19, 2022
The place of grieving is a sacred space. Jesus Himself said, “Blessed are those who mourn” (Matthew 5:4). However, mourning is a complicated process that too many rush through and, as a result, miss the life transformation that can result. For this reason, grief counseling with a well-trained Christian therapist can be extremely beneficial.
Many in our culture today don’t know how to handle grief. As a result, they run from their pain or anesthetize their pain through alcohol, food, drugs, Netflix, social media, or a host of other distractions. Author, Pete Scazzero, teaches that our souls can be enlarged through grief and loss. However, if we’re going to enlarge our souls through our grief journeys, we must create the space to grieve authentically and process our losses. Grief counseling is a valuable tool that can be life-changing.
What Is Grief Counseling?
Grief counseling is a type of professional therapy designed to help people work through the various stages of grief and process the accompanying emotions. It becomes a place where the person grieving can honestly look at their feelings in the presence of a safe godly person. While many believers feel confused about negative emotions, grieving can actually become part of our spiritual transformation.
The grieving process is a long process that sometimes comes in waves. It doesn’t necessarily have a clear ending. This makes it incredibly difficult to maintain hope. Grief counseling invites another into the journey of grieving with you and allows you to process together.
God never meant us to journey through life’s ups and downs alone. He designed us for community.
The Bible Has Quite a Bit to Say about Grief, Loss, and Mourning
Throughout the scriptures, we see many passages on grief and loss. In Deuteronomy 34:8 we find that when Moses died, all of the nations of Israel mourned for 30 days. Imagine! An entire month just mourning.
As we study the Psalms, we discover that about 40% of the Psalms are actually laments. A lament is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow. In fact, in Psalm 22 the Psalmist laments and Jesus later quotes this Psalm in His own lamenting on the cross. Jesus Himself taught in the sermon on the mount that those who mourned are blessed. (Matthew 5:4). In John 11, Jesus wept with Mary and Martha over the loss of their brother Lazarus. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus mourned His own upcoming death on a cross. He was called by the prophet Isaiah, “A Man of sorrows acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).
The Biblical truth taught all through the scriptures is that after death there is a resurrection. However, often we don’t experience the beauty of the resurrection because we don’t take the time to grieve well. Grief counseling provides a safe space to slow us down and help us really process our grief so that we can move towards something new in an emotionally healthy manner.
Here are 3 reasons Christians should go to grief counseling:
1. To Help Untangle our Emotions
When we are in the thick of grieving our emotions can become so tangled, that processing all those feelings can be challenging. It can be so emotionally and spiritually beneficial to process our losses with a godly Christian therapist. Grief and loss are so emotionally draining that having the presence of a godly counselor is very beneficial. The Psalmist wrote that “before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely” (Psalm 139:4). In other words, God Himself knows and understands all of our tangled emotions. When we are grieving, we can echo the Psalmist’s prayer, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts” (Psalm 139:23). When we dare to authentically lay our anxious thoughts before God and a Christian therapist, we are more able to untangle all our varied emotions. The writer of Proverbs wrote, “victory is won through many advisors” (Proverbs 11:14b). Victory in the midst of deep pain only comes as we allow others to help us process that pain and untangle our emotions.
When you meet with a Christian therapist for grief counseling, you are able to untangle all your mixed-up feelings. As you process verbally how you feel, the Holy Spirit is able to flush out your anxieties, fears, and insecurities. Jesus leads this process through His Holy Spirit. In the words of Corrie Ten Boom, “Jesus Christ is able to untangle all the snarls in my soul, to banish all my complexes, and to transform even my fixed habit patterns, no matter how deeply they are etched in my subconscious.”
2. To Process our Pain
Unresolved trauma and pain become toxic to our souls. God created our brains with the ability to look at a situation and process our painful experiences. When we don’t process that pain, it is like poison to our souls.
Remember what happened in John 11? When Lazarus became ill, Martha and Mary sent for Jesus. Jesus, however, delayed coming, and in the in-between time, Lazarus died. Martha and Mary were overcome by grief. They were traumatized by Lazarus’s death. When Jesus finally showed up both sisters cried out, “If only!” They were likely thinking, “If only you had come sooner, Jesus. If only you had healed Lazarus.” Not only were they dealing with the trauma of Lazarus’s death but also with the trauma of a faith crisis. They were wondering, “Why didn’t Jesus come sooner?!” Jesus met them in their trauma and wept with them (John 11:35). Then after He resurrected Lazarus from the tomb He turned to the crowd and said, “Help him take off his grave clothes” (John 11:44). Jesus could have removed Lazarus’s grave clothes with one almighty word, just as He resurrected Lazarus’s life with His word. Instead, He wanted to send a message. We need community to help us take off our grave clothes when we are grieving.
3. To More Effectively Comfort Others
We are called to comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received. I have heard it said that you can’t really listen emphatically to others unless you yourself have had a therapist or counselor listen to you empathetically. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-5).
When you invest in grief counseling, you are more equipped to listen to and comfort others who are grieving. By entering into grief counseling and intentionally processing your sorrow, you will be able to follow Jesus’s example and offer comfort to others.
In our culture, we are prone to push past grief and rush our mourning process. However, there is a richness in entering into grief counseling. There we will be provided with a safe place to untangle our emotions and process our pain, and we’ll be better equipped to comfort others with the same comfort we ourselves have received. In the end, by entering into grief counseling, we will see the life transformation that Jesus promised.
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/Daisy-Daisy
