Grief & Loss
A friendship ended suddenly and without explanation. Can that kind of loss be grieved too?
“For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.”
David is describing the particular pain of betrayal by a trusted friend, which he calls more devastating than enemy attack. The fact that this is in the Psalms (the Bible's prayer book) says that God takes the grief of lost friendship seriously. It is not a lesser grief because it is not a death.
“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
Jesus was betrayed by one of his closest friends and abandoned by most of the others at his most critical moment. When you bring the grief of a lost friendship to him, you are not explaining a foreign experience. He knows it from the inside.
A path forward
Treat the end of this friendship like the loss it is. Allow yourself to feel the grief rather than managing it by jumping to explanations or justifications.
If you genuinely do not know why the friendship ended, consider reaching out once to ask. You may not get an answer, but asking is often better than the stories we tell ourselves in the silence.
Resist the urge to immediately replace the friendship with a busier social schedule. Sit with the loss long enough to learn what it is telling you about what you value and what kind of friends you actually want.
Closing verse
“Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”
- John 15:15
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