Download - The Perfect Wisdom Web

Be Not Afraid Griefpeople to cheer her up” – “Don’t let her sit and mourn”)when it is mourning one needs.Courage is a first step, but simply to bear the blowbravely is not enough. Stoicism is courageous, but it isonly a halfway house on the long road. It is a shield,permissible for a short time only. In the end one hasto discard shields and remain open and vulnerable.Otherwise, scar tissue will seal off the wound and nogrowth will follow.It may sound cruel to advise a grieving person, asLindbergh does, to remain open to further pain. Afterall, most of us instinctively protect ourselves, oncewounded, by retreating from the fray. And it isn’t easyto resist that temptation. Yet I have seen that whena person willingly submits to grief, it may act as acrucible that transforms. There is a catch, of course: theneed for humility. Accepted only grudgingly, grief endsin resentment, bitterness, loneliness, and rebellion.Borne with humility, however, it empties the soul of itsown agendas for healing, cleanses it of self-sufficiency,and allows room for something new.For the parents of Matt, the young man whose storyI told at the beginning of this book, grief became anoccasion for self-examination and prayer and broughtthem close to each other and to God. As Matt’s father,18