Small Group Care Plan for the Whole Journey of Grief
Caring for a friend facing a significant loss is something that we (as friends and church members) often start well. We bring meals and try to make sure the mundane burdens (like mowing the grass) are handled. But too often this ends after a couple of weeks, and when the care ends the grieving individual often feels like it is no longer acceptable to speak of their loss. The length of our care often becomes the unspoken time table for how long grief is socially acceptable to talk about. Our care can be an immense blessing when we care well for the duration of the grieving process. The...
Read MoreThe Absence of Providence
Bill & Connie were devastated by the miscarriage on their first pregnancy. It was especially hard sense their closest friends were pregnant at the same time. In fact, the loss was devastating to both of them. But now that Connie was pregnant again the painful memory had faded. The sheer delight of now having a newborn was amazing. But it quickly faded when the doctor came into the hospital room the day after the birth and said that they needed to get their new son to the Children’s Hospital. Questions began flowing and the answers were all open-ended and unanswered. “What was...
Read MoreSuffering to Sin?
“Do not commit the crime for which you now serve the sentence”—Priest In one of my favorite movies the Count of Monte Cristo the aged and dying cellmate and mentor Priest, of hero and protagonist Edmund Dantes played by Jim Cavaziel (Jesus in Passion of the Christ), says one of the most memorable lines in the movie. If you’re not familiar with the story, Edmund was falsely accused of treason and spent 15 years in the infamous prison island of Chateau Daefe before he escaped. During those 15 years Edmund was able to reinvent himself through Priest’s tutelage. He learned how to read, write,...
Read MoreGrief Evaluation
Below is an evaluation to help you see (acknowledge) how you are doing with the different challenging experiences that grief brings. At this stage in the journey, it is tempting to begin comparing your loss with others. Inevitably, we begin to think, “Others have it so much worse than me. Why am I down?” Resist the urge to compare your loss with the loss of others. Just because Person A got hit by a truck does not mean that Person B’s knee surgery hurt any less. The purpose of acknowledging the history and realness of your grief is not to give you a tool to downplay your loss (that would be...
Read MoreTaking the Journey of Grief with Hope
Grief is more than sadness. It is losing someone or something that was a part of you and then trying to answer, “Who am I now?” If we love, we will grieve. If we want to love one-another well, we must know how to offer care during times of grief. The goal of this seminar is to give you guidance for the journey of grief, whether you are the one walking this road or whether you are walking with a friend who is grieving. This is a free seminar (please RVSP below). We hope that many people in our community come and learn how to process this powerful emotions we will all face many...
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