Stages Grief
Losing a son or daughter challenges personal faith in God and can bring a person to the brink of despair. In Lament for a Son, Nicholas Wolterstorff accomplishes the difficult goal of communicating his grief over the loss of his son. The author achieves his goal by grounding his sorrow in Biblical truth and also by allowing himself to proceed between the various stages of death within the Kubler-Ross model. The stages of grief include the initial phase of denial and self-isolation, even shame. Anger is a pervasive problem in the face of grief, and Wolterstorff admits his confrontation with anger at God and the seeming unfairness over the death of his son. Accompanying anger is often the stage of bargaining, in which the individual speaks to God without a full acceptance or understanding of His ways. Wolterstorff's challenge, which he seeks to communicate with his readers, is to overcome the bargaining phase and enter into a phase of joy that stems from loving God. This is the ultimate stage of grieving, in which the person grows through and beyond despair into a new life. Thus, the message of resurrection is central to the grieving process. Lament for a Son shows how the Biblical...
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted," (Matthew 5:4). The discomfort and pain of mourning must be balanced by hope, and hope can be discovered through the Biblical narrative. When faced with a tragedy such as that experienced by Wolterstorff, it remains imperative to recognize the spiritual value inherent in suffering. In fact, it often takes deep suffering to bring a person to God. As Wolterstorff (1987) puts it, "Faith is a footbridge that you don't know will hold you up over the chasm until you're forced to walk out onto it," (p. 76).
Knowing that God's message is actually one of suffering, and that Christ suffered specifically for the purpose of helping humanity, Wolterstorff reminds readers to review their Biblical teachings. The core message of Lament for a Son is precisely that, as Wolsterstorff puts it, "God is not only the God of the sufferers but the God who suffers," (p. 81). Christ suffered deeply, faced…
