Since we all experience losses in our lives, we need to learn how to accept what we cannot change and grow through the crisis. How well we handle any crisis is determined by how we process three mental constructs. The first is permanence. The speed of recovery is greatly affected by whether we think the consequences of the crisis will have a short-term or long-term negative affect on us. The loss is permanent, but it doesn’t have to affect us permanently. There is the potential to grow through every crisis. Suppose your new employer is very irritable. It is a short-term problem if you think it is just a passing mood, and it will have little effect on you. But it is a long-term problem if you think the person is always irritable. You can respond to this crisis as follows: “I’m going to ignore him.” That is denial. “I’m going to be irritable back.” That is anger. “I’m going to try appeasing him.” That is bargaining. “I’m stuck with this irritable person whom I can’t change.” That is depressing. “I’m going to quit this job.” That is resignation. “I’m going to love him and learn how to live with him.” That is acceptance.
The second construct is pervasiveness. You will recover slowly if you think your whole life is ruined. If you experience one loss-you are not a loser. If you fail to accomplish one goal-you are not a failure. If you get laid off at work-you are not unemployable. It is natural to grieve for what we have lost and it is an important part of the recovery process. However, a prolonged depression due to losses signifies an over attachment to people, places, and things that we have no right or ability to control. The martyred missionary, Jim Elliot said, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose.”
The third mental construct is personalization. Blaming yourself for every loss will keep you in a rut. If you experience loss in one area, don’t generalize it into a total crisis. Keep it specific. If you experience a crisis today, don’t allow it to affect you tomorrow. Keep short accounts. If the world is disintegrating around you, don’t accept the blame when it’s not appropriate. If you are suffering the consequences of a bad decision, then change what you can, minimize your losses and move on. Such losses often cause us to evaluate who we are, especially if our identity was tied up with what we lost (i.e. job, or spouse). A crisis can deepen our walk with God and solidify our identity in Christ. Losses also precipitate the need for new relationships and change of scenery. These changes are probably necessary for our growth in Christ, but they would not have been made if not forced to do so.
Nobody likes to entertain the idea of impermanence. We live every day with the assumption that tomorrow will be the same. We make plans for the future with the thought that we will have our health, and the same old job, family, and friends. James says otherwise. “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that’” (James 4:13-15). Only God is permanent; everything else is changing. We are time-oriented people by nature, who are in the process of learning to see life from God’s eternal perspective.
Three times Jesus told His disciples that He was going to Jerusalem and there He would be betrayed and crucified. The first time (Mark 8:31), they essentially denied Jesus and Peter even rebuked Him. The second time (Mark 9:32), they didn’t understand and were afraid to talk about it. On this third occasion (Mark 10:32-34), the disciples were astonished. Their life as usual was soon to be over. We all go through a very predictable reaction when an established lifestyle is abruptly ended by a crisis. Usually the crisis is defined by a significant loss that can be real, threatened or imagined.
Our first response is denial and that can last for three minutes or thirty years. The initial reaction is a sense of disbelief, “No, not me!” Then we get angry and wonder, “How can this happen to me?” The anger often turns to bargaining. “Maybe I can alter what happened?” Finally, we feel depressed when the consequences if the loss cannot be reversed. Reaction to losses is the primary cause for depression. No crisis can destroy us, but they do reveal who we are.
Learning to overcome losses is a critical part of our growth process. Everything we now have, someday we shall lose, except for our relationship with God. The critical questions are: Are we going to choose the path of resignation and allow the loss to negatively affect us for the rest of our lives, or are we going to accept what we cannot change and grow through the crisis? A wise person once said, A bend in the road is not the end of the road unless you fail to make the turn.
www.discipleshipcounsel.com www.ficm.org Used by permission of Neil Anderson.
