© Copyright 2007 by Phil Scovell - All Rights Reserved
21
The Grief Of Death
By Phil Scovell
My father died unexpectedly when I was eleven years of age. One
year later, to the exact date, I came home from the hospital after a
dozen operations on my retinas. I had been pronounced totally blind
and told I would never see again.
I well remember that day and not because of my blindness. It was
late afternoon when we left the hospital so mom and I stopped to pick
up some hamburgers as we began the 270 mile trip back to Omaha where
we lived. It was November 13, 1964. My father had died exactly one
year ago. You could feel the sadness and the coldness and the grief
hanging in the air in the car as we drove through the darkness that
night.
Over the next few weeks and months, my younger sister, Ruth, who
was seven years old at the time, and my mom, became my best friends.
The hardest part soon became leaving and going to a school for the
blind 45 miles away and only coming home on weekends. Yet, as I said,
Ruth and mom became my best friends. Sure, I developed many other
friends over the years but I will never forget what my mom and sister
did for me in those early days of my blindness.
I started with this small amount of background information
because when my mother died less than a year from when I wrote this
article, I felt little sense of grief. Oh, sure, I cried at the
funeral as hard as anyone and I had to be one of the speakers at the
service, too. Yes, I have cried many times since my mother died some
10 months ago now. Yes, I will cry often throughout my life just as I
have concerning the death of my father. It isn't abnormal but
sometimes it is useful in finding areas of woundedness which needs
healing. If there are indeed areas of healing to be done, your grief
very easily becomes abnormal and never goes away until you are healed
by the Lord.
Mom had her first stroke about 7 years before she died. She
recovered probably about 90 percent of her capacity but it was not
quite the same thereafter. It seemed to me that I somehow realized at
that time of my life that my mother, my best friend as a child, wasn't
going to be around forever and I said my goodbyes to her then in my
heart. Yet, as I said, I cried, and cried hard, when she died and for
the days surrounding her funeral.
recently, one of our old basset hounds developed a large
cancerous tumor in his throat. You could feel it from the outside.
He was given pain medication and seemed to be doing well but soon the
tumor grew so large, it made it difficult for him to even swallow
normally. It was time to put him to sleep because it was inoperable
and he was beginning to suffer.
Not wishing to take him to be put to sleep in an office, we paid
for a vet to come to our home. I said my goodbyes to Barney, as I pet
him for a little while, and walking out on to our deck and closing the
door behind me, I sat down on the porch swing. I didn't want to be in
the room when he went to sleep.
I cried that Sunday afternoon off and on for hours. I knew some
of it was due to my sorrow for my wife because she really loved Barney
and it was very hard on her. I also knew there was something stirring
in my emotions that led to another event in my life but no matter how
much I prayed, I could not get a handle on the event. I figured when
the time came, the Lord would let me know and I stopped trying to
figure it out on my own.
Three days later, I thought of Barney once again, as I had been
each day since his death, and felt tears creep into the corners of my
eyes. He had been a good dog and the first basset hound we ever had.
Suddenly, I realized the pain was deep inside of me and too deep to be
the emotions related to the death of a pet. I immediately said,
"Lord, where does this pain take me?" I figured I would end up at my
dad's death, which I often do when something needs healing, or at my
days of going blind in the hospital, which also often comes up when I
need healing. This is due to the amount of trauma experienced in
these two events and I am not completely healed of all the woundedness
in these two major events of my life as of yet. This time, however, I
was surprised to discover I ended up at my mother's death.
At the moment I realized I was in the very recent memory of my
mother's death, I knew what was wrong on the surface. I also knew
that could not be the real problem. Let me explain what I am talking
about.
For probably the last two months of her life, my mother could not
walk, even across the room, without help. When we took her to the
doctor, they felt one of her legs should be removed below the knee
because there was just no circulation. It had to be removed,
therefore, so she was placed into the hospital and it was done.
Following the surgery, mom actually did very well, we all thought, but
suddenly she had a massive stroke and all communications with her was
lost. She was moved to a hospice where she died several days later;
never speaking to us again.
A small bit of some type of anger grew inside of me, to some
degree, and sadden me in other ways. I could not determine what it
was or why. However, every time I thought of mom, I thought of her
dying with only one leg. That in itself seemed irrational to me so I
knew that was not the real cause of my pain. Yet it had something to
do with it or did it.
When the Lord led me back to those recent memories relating to
mom's last hospitalization, The Holy Spirit quietly spoke to me in my
thoughts and said, "How did you feel about your mother's death?"
I said, "I felt sad, of course."
"What else did you feel?" He prompted.
"I felt alone and I knew I would miss her but I was ready for it
I think."
"What else did you feel?" He prompted once again.
"I felt like we should have done something."
"Something about what?"
"Something about them removing her leg."
"What should you have done?"
"We should have told them no."
"And why?"
"Because, we knew she was going to die and we shouldn't have put
her through such a horrible thing."
"So what was wrong?" the Holy Spirit said.
"We should have taken charge."
"We? Don't you mean something else?" He questioned.
I said, "Yes, I should have taken charge."
I knew then what my problem was. I felt a personal
responsibility at the time to have said, no, we aren't removing her
leg. Why did I think I should have taken charge? Because I must have
known in my heart that mom wasn't going to make it through this one
this time and she was going to go home to be with the Lord. Yet I did
nothing. Guilt was the result.
Recognizing the real truth of what was bothering me and seeing
the quiet guilt that lay dormant until the death of one of our
favorite dogs stirred up the emotions relating to that guilt, I said
to the Lord, "Then what is your truth about this situation?"
The Lord said, "You think you should have taken charge to help
your mother but you were not ever in charge of that situation because
I was."
I was instantly released from the guilt. All I have just
described took about one minute of prayer time.
There are some things we need to talk about now concerning this
testimony.
1. There was no sin involved at any time; not before, during, or
after.
2. The feeling of guilt was apart of the grief but wasn't
generated by sins committed.
3. Even this natural sense of guilt generated by a normal
grieving process, would eventually have created an atmosphere whereby
the enemy could have gained a foothold in my life. Why? Read the
next point for that answer.
4. The guilt was a small implanted demonic lie. I know this
because what I believed was not even true. If something isn't true,
what is it?
5. Jesus exposed the lie. He showed me that I wanted to take
charge of the situation but informed me He had been in charge of the
situation from the beginning. Thus, my guilt was invalid, that is, it
was based upon a lie or false information at the time.
6. I was healed. The Lord Jesus spoke to the problem, exposing
it for what it was, and then took the burden off of me and placed it
upon Himself. It instantly released me. I actually felt this process
occur at the moment He spoke His Words of truth to me.
Final Remarks
Does this mean I no longer will miss my mother? No, it does not
mean that. It means that the enemy tried to implant a small little
bit of falsehood, or what the Bible calls a lie, into an event in my
life. Why would he do this? So he could use it later against me at
another time where it could do the most damage. Without the Lord's
help, I never would have seen the truth about my feelings relating to
my mother's death.
"What about your dog, Barney. Was that of God?
Here is what you really are asking. Did the Lord take your dog
to teach you something? the answer is, no. Barney died due to
natural causes over which we had no control. Did the Lord use this
situation to bring about more healing in my life? Yes, He most
certainly did. The enemy, however, also tried using it. He tried to
use my sorrow and tap into the little lie he had placed in my thinking
to create even more grief and confusion in my life. Why would the
enemy do that? Because he tries to keep us from walking close to God
and from keeping Jesus from being other than the Lord of our life.
What about the grief you carry? Is it really about a pet or a
friend or a mate or a relative who has passed away or is it about pain
buried deep within you somewhere? Are you afraid to let Jesus the
Healer see that pain? Is your Christian pride getting in the way or
are you just being deceived by the enemy? It is time to hear the
truth from the True Lord Jesus Christ and be healed. You can keep
carrying the burden of grief all you want but you will soon learn it
only becomes heavier and heavier as the years go by. Jesus died and
was resurrected to set you free.