Spirituality: How does Wolterstorff Find Joy After his Loss?

Spirituality
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Wolterstorff writes about a personal experience on grief and his approach towards the loss of his son. The book presents itself as a case study on how human being relate to death and God in such occasions. This paper first interrogates Wolterstorffs reflection and relates it to Kublers Ross view on the same, it later talks about death in light of the narrative and other sources. Kubler-Ross describes the stages of grieving in relation to human beings as denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance (James, 2010). According to the author, the stages can provide a framework and helpful understanding of death and the grieving process that burdens human beings thereafter.
The first stage of grief as presented by Kublers is denial, when Wolterstorff receives a phone call regarding the status of his son he for a moment could not believe what he had despite having the knowledge that he could not change anything. During his sons burial he reckons touching his cheek in disbelief and could not believe it was him they buried (Wolterstorff, 1987). Anger manifests in him, the idea that God protects the perfect, the fact that he is with us and humanity end up in misery brings out that aspect of anger (Harris, 2002). Bargaining is the third stage and is present when he states that it is wrong for the child to die before his parents yet there are no rules as to when someone is supposed to die or the sequence in a family (Wolterstorff, 1987) .Depression is present in the narrative when the author gets into mix feelings on whether to cry or not, he goes further to criticize the society views on men crying (Wolterstorff, 1987).
The aspect of acceptance arises when he concedes that God should be understood as suffering and that despite all that he still loves the creature (Harris, 2002)., this therefore draws an inference that despite Wolterstorff going through all that suffering there is an element of acceptance in him by believing in the loss and God, according to him God must be regarded as both everlasting and changing (Harris, 2002). He further shows acceptance at page thirteen where he concedes to the fact that his son is gone and never to be seen again (Wolterstorff, 1987).
Wolterstorff finds joy after his loss in various ways, the hope and believe that he will see his son again, a belief founded on Christianity. The narration preface starts by acknowledging the universality of bereavement and that makes him that motivation to w...