A Woman's Guide to Spiritual Warfare: A Woman's Guide for Battle by Quin Sherrer & Ruthanne Garlock

Author:Quin Sherrer & Ruthanne Garlock [Sherrer, Quin & Garlock, Ruthanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion, General
ISBN: 9780892837144
Google: c15pJB2DgFoC
Publisher: Servant Publications
Published: 1991-07-14T23:00:00+00:00

Grief and Disappointment

Solomon wrote, “Heartache crushes the spirit,” and, “A crushed spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 15:13; 17:22). Grief is this “crushed spirit” mentioned in Proverbs, and it comes through many causes: a broken relationship; the loss of a loved one, a business, or a job; or broken dreams. It may come through a miscarriage or barrenness or through disappointment in yourself or another person. We can even be disappointed by God, feeling that He let us down when we needed Him.

Victims of grief need to avoid the “If only . . .” treadmill of lamenting their own failure: “If only I’d made my daughter stay at home, that drunk driver wouldn’t have killed her. She would be alive today.” The enemy uses such tactics to produce in us guilt and despair, which often leads to anger against God.

Grieving should follow a natural process over a reasonable time span. Counselors say this normally ranges from one to three years, although the process of healing may take longer for some. But unresolved, prolonged grief opens the door to spiritual, physical and emotional problems that paralyze spiritual growth.

A young mom at a retreat where I (Ruthanne) was once speaking came for prayer about her uncontrollable anger. “I overreact when my four-year-old daughter misbehaves,” she said. “Sometimes I even yell at her for no reason—and it frightens me.”

Asking the Lord for guidance as to how to pray, I felt impressed to ask about her family background and her walk with the Lord.

She said her father had died suddenly when she was four years old. In an effort to shield her from grief, her mother and family members never told her how the death occurred, nor did they allow her to attend the funeral. Too bewildered to ask meaningful questions or fathom this loss at age four, she only knew her daddy never came home again.

Over the years, she learned the details of what happened, but her unresolved grief became a deep, bottled-up anger toward God for depriving her of a father in her childhood. When her own daughter reached age four, that anger began boiling to the surface in outbursts against her child and, sometimes, against her husband and even herself.

I assured her that God had not inflicted this tragedy upon her but that in our fallen world, these things happen. Then I encouraged her to release her deep anger over her loss and freely express to God the grief and anguish she had kept buried for so long. As she poured out her heart to the Lord and began weeping, I comforted her as if she were that little girl crying for her daddy.

When her tears subsided, she looked up with a new brightness in her eyes. I urged her to continue opening her heart to the Lord during the remainder of the retreat so He could heal her completely. She returned home feeling as though she had been freed from a bondage she had not even been able to identify.

In

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