Grieving Over What Could Have Been

Can you grieve something you never had? Absolutely.

While grieving usually involves a loss, like a death or a relationship, it can also include sadness over something not attained.

One of my friends refers to this as mourning.

A while back, my husband, Ric, found out he didn’t get a job he had spent six grueling weeks preparing for. Five interviews, six long weeks, time he will never get back.

During this time, he applied for other jobs and had interviews with other companies. But when he was told by his would-be boss’s boss that Ric had his “endorsement,” we reasoned, falsely, that his last interview was just a formality — an in-person meeting to make sure Ric didn’t have an extra head or no teeth, one that would end with the shaking of hands and a signature on a dotted line.

Well, not so fast.

The last interview was much more than the shaking of hands, and it was beginning to look like a no such done deal.

We prayed for this job, even thanking God in advance for what He had already done. Being a prayer warrior, I solicited other like-minded friends to pray along with me, and we were off to the races. Why not this job? Why not His will? Why indeed.

What happens when you feel like something is a sure thing, but it doesn’t materialize? After all, by faith you quoted scripture, reminding God of who He is and what He said. Are those promises for everyone else but you?

You plead; you beg.

But the rejection email still lands in your inbox at 8 on a Tuesday night, right around the time your wife is at a prayer and healing night at church.

Me being me, I wanted to talk about it. Can you relate ladies?

The best way out is through, my mantra, echoed in my ears.

The next day I suggested this very thing, and I was met with familiar words: “I want to move on.”

“But I’m affected by this loss as well,” I say, “and want to grieve it as such.”

That’s when I am met with soul-crushing words: “It’s not a loss if you never had it.”

Really?

Then why do I feel a loss? Why do I feel sadness, the loss of hope?

Jesus knows why because He did, too. He felt loss when His friends fell asleep, when Lazarus died, when all but John deserted Him as He died on the cross.

And He knew the ending, He knew all of this would happen. Yet in his humanness, He still had strong emotions regarding these events.

If it’s not a loss, was the sadness I felt a lie? No. We can grieve something we hope for, something we truly believed would happen.

And it’s okay.