Grief and the Subconscious, Part II

I experienced three major losses this year. One was an apostolic and prophetic pioneer. She lived to the age of 97. She planted churches; raised sons and daughters; preached in churches, store fronts, living rooms, prayer bands and tents. She ordained elders, she lodged strangers, she entertained angels, she washed the saints’ feet, she christened newborns, she buried the dead, she visited those who were in prison, she fed the hungry, she clothed the naked, she healed the sick and raised the dead, and imparted wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and the ancient of days anointing into a select remnant. She died empty.

Another was a friend of my mom’s; they met when they were young adults. I’ve known her my entire life. She and her husband were a part of my life; I called them Aunt and Uncle. She served the Lord faithfully. She died empty.

The third was also a friend of my mother’s that I met when I was a young adult. I saw her nearly every week. I loved her dearly. She died, not quite empty.

With both my parents in heaven and being an only child, I live with a perpetual absence, and a cruel reality of death’s finality.

During this fast, the Lord revealed to me that a blockage had occurred in my spirit, and it was strangling the emotions of my soul, where it could not be the vehicle to express what God wanted me to feel that would assist in my healing.

The Spirit of the Lord spoke to me and said that I had deliberately postponed experiencing grief because I thought I just didn’t have the time to stop and process what had happened. He shared with me that it was a way of escape because I did not want to be emotionally available to experience the pain and finality of death.

So too, many in the Body of Christ have experienced some kind of death – separation, divorce, abandonment, betrayal, and even the loss of an appendage, where in its loss, a phantom limb is experienced. As many can attest, even when the loss or death is expected, it is no easier to bear.

Grief is a deep, intense sorrow experienced in spirit, soul and body, from loss and it produces an agony and misery that manifests itself in a depressed, melancholy and mourning state. Because of grief, there are many wounds that occur in the Body of Christ. (Proverbs 18:14 The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?) If our spirits are fed, watered, nurtured and maintained, they become healthy, strong and resilient. They sustain our frame so that the enemy’s intention in the infirmity will not be realized or experienced toward a destructive end. Hebrews 4:15 says, For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

But grieving makes you infirm, leaving you lacking in strength, having a weak mind, and a frailty in your emotions.

I have come to an understanding of the complexity of being highly anointed and superiorly gifted that brings an ultra-sensitivity to the Spirit, which not only makes you sensitive to the spirit realm, but to everything and everyone around you. This can be an asset or a liability, because you cannot choose what you experience.

I was walking in denial of what had occurred because of the loss through death. I had to acknowledge that it was the absence of something or someone and that things would never return to the way it once was. And the fond remembrances of what 'once was' provides no solace because that, too, is a reminder that they are no longer there. It’s a finalization, and to acknowledge it is painful.

Several years ago, I went to a home going celebration of a saint. As members of the family were weeping, the intercessors present were binding up the spirit of grief. I had an understanding of what they were trying to do – but my revelation conflicted with their present knowledge. God did not want them to bind up the spirit of grief, He chose that outlet so they might express their grief. Ecclesiastes 3:4 What He wanted them to do was to bind up the enemy from prolonging the grief beyond the time that was necessary to process the loss and move on.

You try to find words to make it socially acceptable: they passed, they expired – but death is just that, it is final and gripping.

There are devastating effects from not experiencing something when it should be experienced.

We need to understand that the Lord’s time is His appointed time, and His appointed time embodies all that is necessary to receive ‘beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.’ Isaiah 61:3

Maybe Charlie Brown was prophetically speaking when he exclaimed, ‘Good Grief!’