Hey! It's Jim Cress, back with you again. How you doing today? That's a very important question for me because of what we're talking about today. It's almost a strange topic — in the midst of a book or a Bible study on boundaries — to talk about grief. Why would we talk about this in one of our last sessions? Maybe we've saved the most important thing for last, or near the last of what we're talking about. I say often to people, you know, in counseling I've realized as a licensed professional counselor, that a big chunk of what I do is grief work. Doesn't mean somebody in your life just died — might mean that. Or maybe if a relationship is over or a marriage is over. I call a divorce the death of a marriage. There's just no funeral or, or a memorial service for it. I realize I really help people — that's not all I do — but I help people grieve through their losses, and there is a process. Actually, strange thing, grief is actually your friend. The many stages of grief, and cycling through and working through the process … processing all your emotions. It actually, grief, is actually not our enemy. I love where the word of God says, "We grieve not as those who have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13). So, we're going to work through a grieving process, especially around boundaries. And if a relationship doesn't get to a good place, what are some of the ways, maybe a relationship you're in right now, that we can grieve certain dynamics of that relationship, and yes, do that in a healthy way? That healthy way part's really important, because one of the two … there are a couple of dynamics in grief (different stages), but two I look at a lot is anger turned outward. I'm just mad at God, at myself and you and this person who's violating my boundaries, or I've tried to, to be healthy with them, and they won't let me. Maybe I'm mad at myself, like, what a fool I've been to stay in this relationship so long; or mad at God, “God, why would you allow this to go on? I begged and begged and begged for you to turn this person around." So, let's take a look at some of the aspects of grief and what it means like in a relationship. A couple of things are going to happen: yep, you're gonna have a revisionist history; it's actually pretty accurate. You're gonna look and say, "Wow! I look back … this person gaslighted me." I use … there's three different ways a person can lie to you or betray you, L-O-G. They either “L”, lied to you — they, right there, looked at you and lied. “O”, they omitted, they didn't tell you what? Some of the details that you'd want to know in this intimate relationship — lie, omit, or “G”, they gaslight you. They knew the truth, you knew the truth, they tried to make you feel crazy. So, you have to go back and go, "What was really real in this relationship?" You want to be with a counselor, a good friend, a pastor, someone who can help you sort through so you're not just doing that alone. And more than just with a journal. A journal is great, but to have someone go through that revisionist history to say, "What of this was real, and how do I even know?" And so, so many times I've seen, I've seen a person say, "You understand I've wasted so many years of my life." Maybe. But God never wastes a wound. Or they'll say, "You know what? That person, they'll go on, and they'll be happy. They'll move on to another relationship as though my relationship with them never even meant anything." That's possible. What's it like when someone gets by with something? Remember the word of God, "Be not deceived: God is not mocked. He will not be mocked for whatever a person sows, that shall they also reap" (Galatians 6:7). Your grieving process is between you and God and the other person helping you. Grieving the loss or the damages of a relationship is not dependent on that other person, including what they end up doing or not doing. I've said it before, "Take that person off your hook, and put ‘em on God's hook." Not in a vengeful way, but to say, "You know what? They may seem like they're getting by with it." And we also, as I've said so many times in other venues, that mental health that we all want, and spiritual health — it's a commitment to reality at all costs. Hear that last part. There's your grief. It's a commitment to reality at all costs. So, I do an inventory and say, "What does this cost me?" Yes, years of your life, times of your life; you've been betrayed. And you know what else it does? It creates a sacred space as you grieve, between you and God and the journal, and the word of God and a good friend and good conversations to process what was there that you might go forward and not be what the Scripture calls “a root of bitterness” (Hebrews 12:15). Again, if you don't grieve, the pain won't leave for you to be free to go on and entrust that person to God. As you think about grieving, part of this will feel counterintuitive, but I hope you'll trust your own process. It's going to take time to grieve so that you are free. And it'll take time for you to realize that you don't have to own the other person's sinful behaviors. Don't own their stuff. But you can take your time to look in the mirror and own your own stuff, and go forward and see grief as your friend, no longer as a dark scary enemy. Let's all be together in the grieving process of life.