{"id":11929,"date":"2022-07-29T15:07:27","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T15:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/?p=11929"},"modified":"2023-06-30T18:34:14","modified_gmt":"2023-06-30T18:34:14","slug":"four-words-that-help-move-me-from-grief-to-acceptance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2022\/07\/four-words-that-help-move-me-from-grief-to-acceptance\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Words that Help Move Me from Grief to Acceptance"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

This article is an excerpt from the book, <\/em>We\u2019re Stronger than We Look: Insights and Encouragement for the Caregiver\u2019s Journey. Jill and David Brown lived full and healthy lives until David took a violent fall off his bicycle and into a wheelchair in 2009. Jill now serves as his primary caregiver.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen wash your face.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the bridge in the center of the quote I like so much: \u201cOccasionally, weep deeply over the life that you hoped would be. Grieve the losses. Feel the pain. Then wash your face, trust God, and embrace the life that he\u2019s given you.\u201d Those four words stand as the transition between looking back at what we\u2019ve lost and moving toward what we have in its place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a good metaphor. But how do we turn that into reality? What does \u201cwashing your face\u201d look like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Grace Disguised<\/em>, a rich, deep, honest book, came out of Jerry Sittser\u2019s experience of losing his mother, wife, and daughter to a drunk driver. I treasured and learned from the whole book, but one section surprised me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSorrow,\u201d Sittser writes, \u201cis noble and gracious. It enlarges the soul until the soul is capable of mourning and rejoicing simultaneously. . . . However painful, sorrow <\/a>is good for the soul.\u201d1<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is<\/em> it? Sorrow can rip and twist the soul, leaving it in bitter shreds. It can numb the soul, so a person is never fully alive again. It can turn people against God, so they never trust him again. I\u2019ve seen all of that happen. But for sorrow to be good for the soul, maybe \u201cwashing your face\u201d is an essential step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sittser writes about a night when his young son expressed anguish and rage, wanting to make the drunk driver suffer as he\u2019d made their family suffer. Sittser held him, and they sat in silence. Then his son said, \u201cYou know, Dad, I bet someone hurt him, too, like maybe his parents. That\u2019s why he did something to hurt us. And then I bet someone else hurt his parents. It just keeps going on and on. When will it ever stop?\u201d2<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to those words! You can hear sorrow enlarging that child\u2019s soul. He hadn\u2019t reached the place of rejoicing, but he was edging onto that road. He had begun to look beyond himself, beyond the now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that story, I saw four parts of \u201cwashing your face\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Be with someone you trust.<\/li>
  2. Talk honestly<\/a>. Express your feelings.<\/li>
  3. Allow yourself times of silence, making room for truth to shift within you.<\/li>
  4. If there\u2019s a place for forgiveness, forgive.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    During our worst-vacation-day-ever, when grief for what we\u2019d lost knocked David and me for an unexpected loop, we talked it out. We didn\u2019t try to solve or fix anything. We just expressed. Some parts we went into more deeply or from a different angle than ever before, and I had a sense of something<\/em> happening in me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    My soul, enlarging? A bridge, leading me to trust God more than before?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For Sittser, \u201cwashing his face\u201d doesn\u2019t mean denying his grief. He doesn\u2019t leave sorrow behind. He takes it with him and allows it to coexist with the joy he finds in life. I don\u2019t know how to do that, but I don\u2019t think he did either. Not at first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We learn along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
    \n
    \"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
    \n

    Jill Case Brown<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    is on staff with The Navigators, where she provides part-time pastoral care for those serving in ministry. She has been the caregiver for her husband, David, who is also on staff with The Navigators, since his bicycling accident in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
    More from Jill<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
    \n\n\n\n
    \"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This article is an excerpt from the book, We\u2019re Stronger than We Look: Insights and Encouragement for the Caregiver\u2019s Journey. Jill and David Brown lived full and healthy lives until David took a violent fall off his bicycle and into … <\/p>\n

    Read moreFour Words that Help Move Me from Grief to Acceptance<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":11931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":""},"categories":[615],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n4 Words to Move from Grief to Acceptance | The Disciplemaker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Four words stand as the transition between looking back at what we\u2019ve lost and moving toward what we have in its place.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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