Posts
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.
