One element of grief I have wrestled with is guilt. After losing our daughter, I spent a lot of time blaming myself.  I agonized over every decision we made, wondering what we could have done to change the outcome.  If only I had taken Kayln to just one more specialist, I thought, maybe her condition would have been discovered.

My self-blame was challenged in our grief class by the discussion of true guilt verses false guilt. True guilt comes as a result of my wrong actions. If I had done something to cause her death, that would be a source of true guilt. False guilt is when I take responsibility that doesn’t belong to me. Over time I realized that I was suffering from false guilt, because I know that we tried everything in our power to help her.

One Bible verse that has helped me with this false guilt states that God alone determines the length of our lives:  “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed” (Psalm 139:16, NLT).

Zig Ziglar said it this way, “God knows the exact time we will die. There’s nothing you can do to extend your lifespan one-tenth of a second”.  Grieving people need to let go of guilt that does not belong to them. Carrying the blame for a loved one’s death is an unnecessary burden that hinders our healing from grief.