I will be doing 5 different posts on the five stages of grief and how I have expressed them and try to deal with them.  I hope that this is helpful to anyone who may currently be in the stage of grief outlined in the post.  The stages of grief are not a straight line, and they don’t always go in order.  They are like waves.  They may come in rapid succession, or they may come less often, but crash much harder and be much larger.  I decided that I probably went through all five stages in the first night that we found out that Harper did not have a heartbeat.  Please join me on this journey through these five stages and my thoughts. 

Please look back on the post on Anger and Denial to see the start of these topics if you haven’t already read it.

Everyone loves finding a good bargain.  We walk to the back of the store to find the clearance items.  We travel a little bit further to save that $1 at another store.  We also are willing to negotiate.  When I go to the car dealership, I am not satisfied until that Sales person has talked to their boss at least three times with my different offers.

Sometimes we make grief like that.  We try to bargain with God.  In Genesis 18, Abraham tries to bargain with God for Sodom and Gomorrah.  Abraham is trying to save the city in which Lot and his family live.  He asks God to relent if there are 50 righteous people.  God says he will.  Abraham goes back and forth six times and “haggles” the number down to 10.  God says if He can find 10 righteous people in the city then He will not destroy the city.  Of course we know that the city was still destroyed, but Abraham sure tried to bargain with God to save the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah.

I tried to bargain with God for my daughter.  Driving to the hospital from work that first day, I was asking God to take me instead of Harper.  That is a form of bargaining.  I asked God what he wanted from me to save Harper.  More bargaining.  I offered God all of the “righteous” activities.  I would read my Bible more, go to church more, share the Gospel more, etc.  All bargaining with God.  Even now, I would give anything to have my daughter here with us. 

The problem with bargaining with God is twofold:

1: He doesn’t need anything we have to offer.  He can make anything He wants happen and He knows His plans.  If He wants to change things in our lives, He can just do it.

2: Everything I can offer is already His.  I can’t give Him anything because it all belongs to Him anyways. 

We need to stop bargaining with God and just thank Him for what we do have and praise Him for what He has done.  Job had great suffering and many reasons to try to bargain with God, but instead he said those famous lines in Job 1:21, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return.  The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” 

So in the midst of your struggles.  In the midst of your pain.  In the midst of your grief.  Don’t try to bargain with God.  Praise Him and bless His name because He gives and takes away.

-E