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Part 5 of a five-part series by Kit Hinkle

Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
1 Timothy 6:12 (ESV)

If you’re coming to us for the first time this week, begin with the part one of our posting on The Bout with Doubt- Part One: Introduction. After reading the introduction to the series, follow through each part of the series as we walk through the steps of eliminating the habit of unhealthy anxiety.

Step One:      Recognizing habitual tears (Tuesday’s posting)

Step Two:      Observing the habit (Wednesday’s posting)

Step Three:      Replacing a habit with Truth (Thursday’s posting)

Step Four:      Freedom to grieve honestly (Today’s posting)

I am assuming you’ve tracked with me on all the parts of this series and understand how to recognize tears that are healthy from a cycle of wallowing and that you understand how you can replace the habit with the Truth of God’s Word. If not, I encourage you to retrace our steps.

Now comes the happy part– replace the unhealthy tears with freedom–not just freedom by knowing God’s truth but active steps you can take. For example – don’t isolate. I know when I get in that mode of wanting to feel sorry for myself and having anxious thoughts, I want to get away from everyone and tend to my wounds. But armed with the knowledge of which tears are healthy and which are not, I can balance my time to myself and with others.

Reaching out to others frees you from your obsessive thoughts. No matter how difficult it feels, overcome your negative thoughts of no one wants to hang out with me, and get involved somewhere. Get into a bible study with other women. Join a quilting group. Get on a softball team if you love that kind of thing. Just get out. Meet people. Don’t accept that a widow has to be alone. She doesn’t.

And when you’re out with others, intentionally be about them. You’ll want to air your pain– and you can. But train yourself to present your wound briefly, and then ask them to share and do nothing but listen. You’ll find yourself feeling lifted as they relieve their burden.

The more I healed from the loss, the easier it has become to recognize and welcome the tears at moments when I know God wanted me to work through something. I recognized it by listening only to God- feeling that connection and feeling His encouragement as I grieve.

Sometimes I crawl into bed at night with my laptop and flip over to the youtube video tribute someone had made for my husband put to the song, Captain Sunshine. You’re welcome to check it out here.

There was a time when watching that video provoked inconsolable tears. I now view it with warm thoughts and a sad smile and tears of joy that God blessed me with such a husband and still occasionally feel a surge of sadness as the music plays. When that surge turns into an eruption of tears, though, it feels different. I’m sobbing heaving tears, but I’m feeling relief—peaceful and healing. It’s God led grief, and I know it.

That’s freedom.

My prayer is that all of us lean more on the tears that heal the wounds.

Dear Lord,
there are many reasons for tears when we grieve. Even patterns that may turn habitual are part of the grieving process. You made each of us with specific design, and the grieving of a loss has to take its own particular path through each of our hearts. I pray, Lord, that somewhere in all the different perspectives we’ve covered on the bouts of tears this week, someone finds Truth to help her better understand her tears so she can embrace her grief as a part of Your healing.
Amen