ManageYourEmotionsBook8.5x5.5_RevJULY.indd

16 Good Grief

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3).

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A nyone familiar with Charles Shultz’s Peanuts comic strip knows about the occasional “good grief ” coming from one of the characters.Although many associate this phrase with Charlie Brown and his friends, it actually traces back to the begin- ning of the 20 th century.The phrase started out as “Good Lord” in SamWalter Foss’s poemAn Art Critic in 1899: “But when the verse was anthologized the very next year as a part ofWerner’s Readings and Recitations, vol, 24, the oath was replaced with “Good grief!” 104 – like a person saying “gosh” instead of “God.” Even though “good” is a part of the exclamation, it actually expresses surprise and irritation. Ironically, unless it is taken to extremes, grief is good.We’ll explore this agonizing but necessary emotion by first looking at an examination of grief. “Grief is a natural response to loss. It’s the emotional suffer- ing you feel when something or someone you love is taken away.The more significant the loss, the more intense your grief will be.” 105 And though it is generally associated with the death of a loved one, grief often occurs in other losses such as divorce, health, a miscarriage,

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