Secondary losses

 The loss of someone dear often leads to many secondary losses. Family dynamics. Shifting friendships. Confidence in social situations. Sleep. The ability to go to the grocery store/Target/a baby shower/etc. and it feel light and breezy. A sense of identity. The loss of the loved one demands the most grief, attention, and emotional energy, but as the dust settles we grieve the “smaller” secondary things we lost when we said goodbye.

Identify the secondary losses. Give yourself permission to grieve, even if they seem small in comparison. Give them to God. Be honest with Him. Cry out to Him for help. Let Him meet you in your grief, even grief over the secondary things.

Cling to what will never change. Loss may have shaken your sense of identity, but it does not change the core truths we can hold fast to. Who God us and who we are in light of who He is.
I wrote some of these things down and carried them around with me so I could remind myself of this unchanging truth when everything around me felt nothing but good.

As things I hold onto slip through my fingers, God doesn’t change. God is patient, faithful, sovereign, powerful over everything, knows everything, holy, just, loving and good. In Christ, we are forgiven (1 John 1:9), redeemed (Ephesians 1:7), adopted into God’s family (Galatians 4:7, Ephesians 1:5, Romans 8:17), God’s workmanship created to do great things for Him (Ephesians 2:10), children of God (John 1:12), a new creation (II Corinthians 5:17), and so many other gifts we have in Him.

Let us meditate on this as we grieve. May we feel the freedom to lament, as we await the day when all things will be made new.