Grieving: fear as part of loss

Read this famous scripture about fear: Luke 1: 28-31
--What works to banish your fears or anxieties? What convinces you to "fear not?"

Practices:
Too often we mistake material gifts as a substitute for being present with ourselves, for our loved ones and with God. We make idols of many things rather than turning to God. One definition of spiritual health considers our ability to turn to God in love, rather than to idols in fear as a key to spiritual health.

"Repeatedly, humans create false Gods to worship. Even when we have formally pledged our allegiance to the living God, we still can't stop ourselves from this tendency to create and cling to false gods. … Idol making is fueled by our innate insecurity with human existence itself, with our creatureliness, with our perceived powerlessness over the forces that control us. Fueled by this anxiety, we are driven to idolize.
Anything, even good things, can be made into a god, especially in the context of bereavement. … Idolatry occurs when something that is less than God is set up as a god. Nearly anything can be made into a god. In ancient times it was the attributes of nature—there were sun gods and gods of thunder and gods that dwelt in the ocean depths. … Caesar was treated like a god, as were the pharaohs of Egypt. … In more modern times, we find people who worship success, fame, power, status and wealth. They live for their gods just as surely as the ancients did for theirs.
Whether ancient or modern, however, idols are always essentially temporary, not eternal. … The fact that false gods are essentially temporary in nature, in contrast to the living God who is eternal, is a helpful distinction to keep in mind as we approach a discussion of loss in later life. We grieve over "attachments" in life that are temporary.
Another central feature of idolatry is that these lesser gods are almost always concrete or visible entities. … Normally, we see only God's trace after God has passed by: God's work and God's action after the fact. Worshiping this kind of God requires great trust. It is much easier for humans to worship the false gods, who are more concrete and whose benefits are more tangible.
The false god's appeal is always to something we need or feel we need to survive. Most of these needs, in proper perspective, are normal human needs. We need food, safety, self-esteem, love, and a sense of transcendence. [The paradox of idols is that] they are human creations, products of our own anxieties, and therefore, temporary, limited, finite, and concrete. Their promises are short-sighted." (R. Scott Sullender, Losses in Later Life: A New Way of Walking with God, 2nd edition, New York: Haworth Press, 1999, excerpts from p. 17-22.)

It is recognizing and accepting our own finiteness as a part of creation that we come to terms with our fears. It is through love that we grow in faith to do so. Even our ability to grieve and let go and go on in later years is a sign of our spiritual health and faith, as we are freed from our fears through faith in God's love. Where love is, God is there, and we can let go of fear.