Grief
By Richard
Gunther and Steve Brodie
(Text for a small booklet)
WHEN
SOMEONE
DIES
Every person in the world loses
someone -
It doesn't matter whether we are
Young or old -
Not a single person ever misses out -
Rich or poor, unknown or famous -
Mothers, fathers and children -
Nobody is able to avoid it -
At some time or other -
When we expect it or when we don't -
Eventually,
Inevitably,
We all lose someone we love.
But why do people
have to die?
This booklet will help you
understand.
As
soon as we are born we begin to die. Ageing and death are part of living and growing.
The process begins in our mother's womb, and continues for about 75 years, if
we live about the average number of years, until finally our body stops
working . . .
Have
you ever wondered why we die?
And
where did death come from?
To
find the answers to these very important questions, we have to go to the Bible.
In
the Bible, in the first few chapters, we read that God created this world beautiful
and full of life.
And
on to this beautiful world God created living things - animals, plants, fish,
dinosaurs and birds. When everything was ready, God also made two human
beings.
For
a while, the first humans were obedient to God, and so God kept them
alive, and He was going to keep them alive for ever - but one day they disobeyed
God.
God
had already warned them that if they disobeyed Him they would begin to
grow old and die, but they went ahead anyway . . . so the punishment came to
them, and then it spread to the whole world.
This
is why people, and animals, and plants, and fish, and everything grows old and
dies. We have all inherited the punishment which the first humans were given.
So
death is the consequence of everyone's disobedience, as well as Adam and Eve's,
because nobody obeys God with all their heart - not even the verybest
Christians.
BUT YOU CAN FEEL SAD
Just knowing
why people die doesn't stop us from feeling sad when they do die.
Its
OK to feel sad.
Its
OK to cry.
Its
OK to go somewhere and shut the world out for a while.
This
is normal.
It
is all part of normal grief, and its real, and most people feel the same way
when it happens.
But
after a while the sadness goes away and you can smile again.
SO HOW DO YOU FEEL?
When
someone we love dies, people can feel all sorts of things. Here are some of the
things they feel :
disappointment
resentfulment
fear
anger
tiredness
confusion
loneliness
and sadness
These feelings are all normal.
Everyone has them -
Old people and young people,
Mothers and fathers,
famous people and not so famous
people.
All these feelings are part of being
real.
SEVEN THINGS SAD PEOPLE
OUGHT TO KNOW :
1. It is normal to feel sad.
2.
It is normal to want to
cry, so cry.
3. It is normal to feel confused, or weird, or down, or up, or stupid.
4. It is normal to think that you are
the only one who is feeling sad.
5. Other people will be turned off by your sadness but that's OK -
they can't help it. They may feel unable to help you.
6. Eventually you will feel happy
again. Your sadness won't last for ever - unless you want it to.
7. Some people get over their sadness
quickly, and some people take a long time.
.......................
In our world, it is hard to find
someone who really cares about us - who is willing to talk about the
hard-to-say things.
If you have a friend who loves you
in spite of your sadness, you have the best friend in the world.
Where does God fit in to all this?
Well,
getting back to the Bible, we read that, at the beginning, God wanted people to
live for ever, and to be happy, but they messed everything up. Death
was their fault, not God's fault. He never wanted death to happen to
anyone.
If
you read the Bible a bit more, you will come to four little books, called
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These four books tell the same story, about a man
called Jesus Christ, who came from heaven, and who spent his life
helping people.
He
healed the sick, and gave sight to the blind and he even made dead people come
back to life!
But
at the end of his work, when he was about 30 years old, Jesus died on a cross.
The
Bible says he gave his life as a sacrifice for our disobedience. Because
the first humans, and all their children, (including you and me) disobeyed God,
they all had to die, but Jesus died for everyone, so that means he must
have died for you and me too.
Three
days after Jesus died, he came back to life.
After
that he went back to heaven, and sat on the throne beside his Father. Jesus is
the Son of God.
One
day Jesus will come back to this earth again, and on that day all the people
who have died will come back to life, because he will command them to.
That
will be the happiest day this world has ever seen, for all the people who have
loved Jesus, and died, will come back to life again. They will be with him in
his happy kingdom for ever!
Ever
better, they will never be sad again - ever.