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iQuestions Faculty, June Hunt 
 
 
Question: 
 
No matter how hard I try, I can’t get over the loss of the dearest 
person in my life. How long will this grief last?  
 
Answer: 
 
I don’t know of anyone who has not suffered loss. Everyone has pain—
and with loss, there is grief. That’s normal. 
 
Some people feel, “There’s something wrong with me. There’s 
something abnormal, because I don’t feel the way I used to feel.” 
But the Bible says, in Ecclesiastes 3, “There is a time to grieve, there 
is a time to mourn, and a time to rejoice”. The bottom line is, it’s 
normal to have grief.  
 
God doesn’t want us to be in a state of depression. However, what is 
normal is, we can feel depressed—you know; our hearts are pressed 
down. When you have experienced a genuine loss, it is right for you to 
feel pain. It’s right for you to feel that pain of grief. Now, what do you 
do with that? First of all, you go to God. In fact, it’s very interesting. 
In the Bible we read, Psalm 43:5: “Why are you downcast, O my soul? 
Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise 
Him, my Savior, and my God.” 
 
Being cast down is actually like sheep. If a sheep gets waterlogged 
going into a stream of water, and is drinking; all of a sudden the sheep 
become top-heavy. The water is so heavy that the sheep will turn 
over, and the feet are up in the air, and the sheep can’t get up, 
because the weight is too heavy.  That’s why every sheep needs a 
shepherd. That’s why we’re told by God that we are the sheep of His 
 
pasture. There are times when we can’t get up. We want to get up, but 
we can’t. And so, what we do is we put our trust in our shepherd, and 
He’s the One Who can help us get back up.  
 
What do you do when you feel depression? Well, what are you dwelling 
on? You see, God tells us what we are to dwell on. Specifically, we are 
told, “Whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, excellent, 
praiseworthy, let your mind dwell on these things”.(Philippians 4:8) 
 
So, this would be my suggestion. When you have experienced a great 
loss—let’s say it was a dear loved one—and that person has died. You 
write out every good thing you can remember; every painful thing you 
can remember. Make a list. After you have completed this long list, 
come back and write, “Past. Past. Past. Past. Past.”  
 
Let the past be the past—but, know that God offers a positive future 
for you. He says, “I know the plans I have for you: plans to prosper 
you, not to harm you; plans to give you hope and a future”. (Jeremiah 
29:11) 
 
So instead now of dwelling on the past, you say, “Lord, thank you for 
these things that are good”. You can start making your list: what is 
good about now? What have you learned about that pain? What has 
enabled you to now have a ministry of compassion that you actually 
didn’t have before? You see, no hurt, no pain, no loss is wasted when 
you put all of that into His hands. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Hunt -2- 
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