Lament for a Son and the Stages of Grief

¶ … Lament for a Son, Wolterstorff talks about how a Christian worldview can help coping with grief and loss. Wolterstorff's perspective corresponds with Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief, even though the narrative is not formally about those stages. The stages of grief provides a model for the ways human beings process death and loss, not to show that there is a "right" or "good" way of experiencing grief but simply to illuminate the reality of suffering and help people to come to terms with death. As Axelrod (n.d.) points out, the stages of grief do not necessarily unfold in chronological order, either. They are not stages of growth, necessarily, although the final stage of acceptance is a desirable outcome. Each person experiences grief and loss differently, and some people may linger longer in some stages and others may not experience that stage at all ("Understanding Grief and Loss: An Overview," n.d.). A Christian perspective enhances the stages of grief model because the narrative of Christ leads a person from a state of doubt and denial to a state of love, acceptance, and joy in God.

The five stages include denial/isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Wolterstorff's narrative shows how Christian scripture is uniquely situated to provide spiritual support for coping with grief and loss at each of these stages. For example, Wolterstorff shows how he initially felt isolated from friends, family, and members of his community even when others had also experienced loss and grief. He points out that there is a "solitude of suffering" and "uniqueness of each death," (p. 25). The Christian point-of-view shows how a person can reconcile feelings of loneliness, isolation, and denial with the truth of Christian love and Christian community.

The Christian narrative offers a special point-of-view specifically because the Christian narrative is about the death and resurrection of Christ. No other religion offers a similar story of death and resurrection, which is a model for human suffering, loss, and death. Suffering is not only part of the human experience; suffering is something that Christ has experienced so that human beings can experience love and salvation. "God is not only the God of the sufferers but the God who suffers," (Wolterstorff, 1987, p. 81). The stages of grief model complements the Christian perspective.

Wolterstorff is able to reach a point of acceptance and find joy after his loss through a deeper understanding of Christ's suffering, as well as Christ's message of eternal life. Too often, people try to understand their suffering from an intellectual perspective. According to Wolterstorff (1987), God does not attempt or even wish for us to understand suffering because God has also suffered. Faith is the key to replacing suffering with love. Christ's message of eternal life is one that resonates because of the fact that death is no longer perceived of as a finality or an ending. Death is a gateway to eternal life with Christ and to a state of mind that is pure and filled with grace. Christ's suffering reminds human beings that it is ok to feel stages of grief like anger or depression, too. People will go through the difficult stages like anger, bargaining, and depression but Christ is right there with them as suffering is the sacrifice made by God.