Thursday's Therapy - 45 Major Reactions Spiritually After Your Child's Traumatic Death ~Tommy and Angie Prince

Thursday's Therapy

45 Major Reactions

Spiritually

After Your Child's Traumatic Death

~Tommy and Angie Prince

45 Major Reactions Spiritually After Your Child's Traumatic Death

• Feel abandoned by God or Feeling a much more intense intimacy with God
• Fear God was neglectful~He didn't stop what He could have
• Fear God took your child
• Feel betrayed by God
• Disillusionment with God
• Alienated from God
• When most need comfort, fear trusting the Comforter
• Shattered "Assumptive Beliefs"
• Feel confused by your mistaken "Assumptive Beliefs" about God or how things work spiritually
• Needing to reassess the accuracy of your current "Assumptive Beliefs"
• Spiritual foundation crumbles or is shaken at a time it is needed to be intact and secure
• Confused spiritually
• Fear of God
• Feel angry at God
• Feel scriptural "promises" for "safety for your child" were violated
• Question the true character of God (If God is truly omniscient {all-knowing}, omnipresent {present everywhere at any time}, omnipotent {all-powerful}, how could He allow a child to be killed?)
• Too traumatized to pray (e.g., If you prayed for safety and your child was killed, you think, "How could I ever pray again?")
• Attempting to make sense of God's actions (e.g., "Where were You God?" thinking if He saw what was happening, He surely would have stopped it, and if not, why?)
• Spiritual foundation feels shattered (Questioning if you can trust God, questioning your former notions of God promising protection for you and your children, etc.)
• Avoiding God, or Intense Need for God (e.g., I tell people I need God "intravenously" now~I cannot handle jokes or trite stories or talks of nationalism in a church service; I need "straight-God" to survive what I am going through.)
• Questioning why bad things happen to good people
• Disillusionment with God
• Wondering, if God is a good God, how could He allow such evil as a child's death to occur.
• Fearing that sins or shortcomings of your own could be used by God against you to take your child
• Needing extreme amounts of alone-time with God for survival of Grief
• Either increased desire for formal group worship, or withdrawal from formal group worship
• Clinging to rituals to cope with grief
• Agonizing before God with any feelings of culpability you may have had in or around the time of your child's death
• Negotiating with God
• Wondering about a deceased person's continued interactive presence in the world
• Wondering about meanings of your child's demise, death, current happenings that seem to be "messages" from one's child
• Wondering about the possibilities of one's deceased child still being a part of your current world in some way
• Searching for meaning regarding your child's death
• Reassessing your personal sense of meaningfulness and purpose in the world
• Reassessing meaning in terms of who you are now, and what is now important to accomplish while you remain in the world.
• Current loss resurrects old, unresolved issues you had with God or your faith
• Wondering where your child is now
• Need for developing a transcendent narrative that gives meaning to your child's death and the events and circumstances around that death
• New clarity spiritually in recognizing what is really important this side of Heaven
• Deeper feelings of intimacy toward God and/or empathy for others
• Numbness to God around the loss of your child
• Paranormal experiences pertaining to your child (such as hearing or seeing your child, having a sense of your child's presence, etc.)
• Protesting with God
• Negative reactions to spiritual platitudes about your child's death
• Ambivalence toward God since the death of your child

Spiritual aspects regarding your child's death will be continued.