Should Christians Grieve?

     I've written before about my mother's death, and how I warned my father and brother that I was going to cry. I learned to grieve when she died, allowing myself a daily time to cry if I felt like it.
     Many people in Christian circles talk about positive attitudes, always being "up" and never feeling our negative emotions...like it somehow makes us bad examples to be angry or sad, because Christians are supposed to be happy and positive all the time.
     I understand the havoc a negative, critical demeanor creates in the heart if allowed to reside there and fester. Perhaps the reason we tend to become so negative is that we have allowed junk to accumulate inside, while pretending to be happy on the outside.
     I wish we had a different expectation: that Christians would be REAL, experiencing joy and sorrow, dealing with anger and disappointment in a healthy way.
     The scripture shows people being REAL. Even Jesus was frustrated with faithless people and angry at hypocrisy. He was sad when His friends were grieving, and as He watched entire religious institutions deny the power of God among them, He cried. He became upset. He was REAL.
     Perhaps our reticence to be honest with our feelings has more to do with our fear of being "out of control" if we begin to feel. In truth, if we stuff our feelings, one day we will be out of control with them. They will only stay hidden so long, and when they come out, it's like a balloon exploding all over everyone.
     I am in a quandary. As I deal with my spouse's Huntington's Disease, I feel the pressure to not feel my unpleasant feelings. I do rejoice much of the time, and will continue --- even in death. Because I know that there is no H.D. in Heaven.
     But for now I go from day to day, constantly moving from joy to sadness and back again, as I watch the man I love and have loved (and sometimes not liked so much) deteriorate before my eyes.
    I often need someone who will do what Paul wrote about when he said: "Grieve with those who grieve, and rejoice with those who rejoice." My children do that well, and allow me the privilege to real.
    And God does too. I throw myself on the words of David in the Psalms. I find comfort in Jesus' compassionate preparation for His first followers: "In this world you will have trouble; but take heart. I have overcome the world."
    The words of Paul in Thessalonians help me live in reality as well: "We do not grieve as people who have no hope." I count on that...and my grieving is hopeful of something better ahead!