This post is dedicated to all who have lost someone they love. You are not alone. And we are promised everything will be okay in the end. I pray you are helped and given hope in writing through your grief. 
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” ~ C.S. Lewis
What does this quote have to do with writing? A lot, actually. C.S. Lewis was not only a great theologian, but also a notable author. When he suffered the loss of his beloved wife, he wrote about it. And wrote and wrote and wrote. His words continue to help people today who struggle with loss, whether it be of people, dreams, or health.
Today we discuss how to use grief in our writing—giving it a greater purpose—and about how writing through grief can actually help assuage the pain.
Writing from Grief and for the Grieving
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.
“At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.” ~ C.S. Lewis, from his book, A Grief Observed
Sometimes we feel so heavy we just don’t have words. After unexpectedly losing a dear, dear friend this summer, I am struggling to write this article, to focus on work, to communicate. After tragically losing a sweet, young friend two years ago, I stopped writing altogether; I refused to even journal. But after forcing myself to pick up a pencil and scratch my raw, unedited grief onto paper, I found that putting my fogged feelings into words helps me process the pain. And that’s what we’re here to talk about today: writing through grief.
I am thankful C.S. Lewis put his sorrow to work to create a book. Because he did, countless people have been impacted by his honest assessment, descriptions, and the spiritual turmoil he had to work through. So what does incorporating our grief into writing—writing through grief—look like? Here are three examples:
1. Describe It
In the above excerpt, C.S. Lewis describes what he’s feeling. He honestly writes out the physical and mental symptoms he has: fluttering stomach, restlessness, yawning, frequent swallowing; concussed feeling, smothering sensation, inability to comprehend speech, fear of being alone.
Describing all of this is helpful for a couple of reasons. First, it’s cathartic. Sometimes just telling another person (or a piece of paper) what’s going on inside your head relieves some of the tightness and fear grief brings; it helps you feel understood, even if your only audience is a slip of wood.
Second, it comforts others who experience the same thing because they realize they are not alone. The more details you can put into words, the better, and the more people you will find who can relate to what you’re going through.
The process of writing or speaking a trauma or tragedy (1) gives release to thoughts, feelings, and tears, (2) makes the event more real and thus more processable, and (3) puts concreteness (i.e. actual words) to the abstract and often illogical thoughts and sensations swirling inside us.
2. Process the Memories
Especially if you’ve been through something traumatic, writing out the details of what happened can help. A lot of times we want to put it out of our minds, to forget the horrible sights we witnessed or the feelings fluttering in our hearts.
But in actuality, writing out our experiences in story form, recalling and reliving every detail, can be immensely therapeutic. It’s hard. Sometimes you feel worse before you feel better. When I’ve done it, I have found myself becoming anxious and scared of the memories I stir up. But afterward, even if it takes a little while, I do feel better. It helps my brain process and work through the event.
It’s also helpful to write out memories of the person we’ve lost. I have found myself crying upon realizing I cannot recall a certain experience I had with someone that others are reminiscing about. It makes me feel like I missed out on precious time with the person—time I didn’t realize was so limited.
Writing out memories—describing the loved one’s appearance, personality, quirks, voice, laugh, sayings, and habits; as well as time spent with them, adventures you shared, things you laughed about, and day-to-day experiences—will not only let you remember everything forever, but will also further aid you in processing just what exactly you’ve lost. In this way it is simultaneously an excruciating and comforting exercise.
3. Help Others
Writing through our grief provides a lot of material we may be able to use later in life to come alongside others and help them. Using past grief in our work—the feelings we experience, the event itself, or the counsel we receive—can benefit people in ways we may never fully know. Seeing this helps us realize that our grief is not for nothing. There is a purpose for it.
Whether or not you are a writer, transcribing your feelings to printed words will make your emotional experience available to others who are searching for comfort.
A Final Point
At the beginning of this article, I made a promise. I said that everything is going to be okay. How should I know? When our world is falling apart and death and loss press in on every side, threatening to smother and drown us, how can we utter the words “everything will be okay” and actually believe them?
There is one reason. The truth is, I cannot separate deep grief from my Savior Jesus Christ. Because of Him, we can have hope that our grief is not for nothing. Allow me to share what I mean.
Because of sin, there is death, sorrow, and pain in this world. And because God is perfect and we are not, we are supposed to be punished and go to hell when we die. But Jesus entered this world. He came down to all the agony and darkness and suffering. He died on the cross, a perfect sacrifice, to pay for our sins. We can be rescued.
To obtain this free gift of salvation, all we must do is repent of our sins and believe in Christ. Romans 10 says that, “…if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
It’s not just for some people; anyone can have this gift: “for ‘whoever calls upon the name of the LORD will be saved.'” (Romans 10:13)
If we have Christ, our griefs in this world—and we will experience them here—don’t have to be for nothing. Our sorrows can have a purpose in drawing us closer to our Savior, in helping others cope with their own griefs, and even in drawing unbelievers to salvation in Christ. We don’t have to feel like we’re suffering for nothing. It’s never for nothing.
I know I digress from writing tips. But in my grief, the realest and most comforting thing I could ever have is Christ. Nothing I write on grief is complete without Him.
For more information on Jesus, what He’s done for us, and the two most hopeful words in Scripture, see this article from DesiringGod.
For an article on praying, journaling, God, and grief, see this article, also from DesiringGod.
For a step-by-step guide on writing out your grief, see my article on what to write when you have no words.
For more ideas on journaling as therapy for coping with trauma and tragedy, see this piece on different journaling methods for those who grieve.
If you have any thoughts or questions on God, grief, or writing grief, leave a comment below or reach out to me in an email. I’d love to hear from you.
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