The Stages of Grief

"How are you handling things?" our Stake Relief Society President kindly asked one of the other ward presidents.  "I can't imagine how hard this must be on you and your husband."

"It's really hard," she admitted sadly.  "I never thought my own son would be sent home from his mission for immorality.  I mean, I've always felt bad when I heard about it happening to other families, but I had no idea it would hurt like this."

We were at the Stake Relief Society President's house, having a meeting with all the ward presidents.  I was a new Relief Society President, and I didn't know any of these other sisters.  In fact, I was pretty intimidated just being included in a group like this.  All of the other sisters were at least ten years older than me, most had grown children, and I really admired them, but didn't feel like I belonged.  So I just sat and listened and tried to learn.

"One of the reasons I wanted to have this meeting was to talk to you about how we can help our sisters deal with grief," the Stake Relief Society President told us.  "I'm sure you've seen in your wards the increase in difficult situations.  There is so much more divorce, family problems, wayward children, and just plain tragic stuff that everyone is facing, and we need to know how to help our sisters."

"I was reading a talk by one of the general authorities last week," a sister on my left said.  "It was about how insidious Satan, and how blatant his attacks on marriage and family are becoming.  This brother said that every single family in the church will be affected by sexual sin.  It blew my mind and really scared me.  But I can see it creeping into many of the families in my ward."

My mind went back to my own encounter with adultery, and the day, seven years before, that my husband had admitted to me his problems with pornography and his resulting infidelity.  "Thank goodness we've already been through that and dealt with it," I thought.  There was no way I was going to admit to these sisters that my own husband had been unfaithful to me, but I could sure identify with the stories they told of sisters in their wards who had been hurt by adultery.

"There are five stages of grief that everyone has to go through when something traumatic happens to them," the Stake Relief Society President explained.  "It's the same, whether your husband dies, you go through a divorce, or one of your children turns away from your family and God.  Those all cause grief, and it will help if you can identify how your sisters are feeling and help them understand these feelings are normal and they have to be gone through.  If you don't go through these stages, but just stuff the feelings inside, they will cause major problems later on."

"First, there is denial.  You just can't understand how this has happened to you, and you don't want to believe it.  Then there's bargaining.  It's almost like you tell the Lord you'll make a deal with him if he'll take the problem away.  There's also anger; real, deep, heart wrenching anger.  Sometimes it's against the Lord for letting this happen to you, but often it's against the person, even when it's someone you love dearly, like being mad at your husband for dying even though he had nothing to do with it.  Eventually you'll reach a stage where sometimes you feel OK and you think you're over it,  then the pain comes back and you don't know what to do, then you'll be OK, only to have it return again.  Finally, and this will take a long time, you will reach a point where the pain lessens and you are able to accept and go on with your life.  Not that it ever is OK, you'll still remember and be sad, but it will be alright."

I listened carefully as our Stake Relief Society President went on explaining each of these stages of grief, and how we could help our sisters go through the grieving process.  I could remember and identify with each stage, and understanding finally dawned on me about why I had felt the way I did after my husband told me about the things he had done.  Thank goodness we had made it through that awful time.  I knew then, and I could see it even clearer as the sisters continued talking about grief, that the Lord had helped and sustained me at that time.  It had been devastating, but I was so grateful it was behind me.  Now, if I could only use my experience and understanding to help the sisters in my ward, hopefully I could make a difference and be an instrument in the Lord's hands.  Maybe that was why he had called me to this position when I was so much younger and less qualified than everyone else.

Or, maybe, although I didn't know it at the time, he was blessing me by letting me learn and get ready so I would be prepared to face my own Gethsemane in the coming future.