LTWT 061: Navigating Grief: Healing During and After Loss

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:07]Welcome to Lighting the Way Today, a place where we discuss how to connect God's word with [music] topics relevant to everyday life. We hope this conversation encourages, enlightens, and inspires you. Enjoy [music] this episode.

[00:00:28]Hello everyone. and welcome back to Lighting the Way. Today I'm Sierra Bergman with Hunter Mullins and I got to say we are both very grateful that you're here for this episode. Today's conversation isn't necessarily an easy topic, but it's one that we should all talk about at some point. It's about grief. And we know that this can be a heavy topic for some people. It can be deeply personal, especially depending on where you're at.

[00:00:55]>> Oh, for sure. Yeah. It's one of those episodes that I think you'll come to understand that everybody experiences this topic at one place or another, but when you're in it, it can be a lot to process, especially if you're processing these things alone.

[00:01:10]>> Oh, totally. And I think a lot of the times we don't even know how to talk about the grief that we may be experiencing. I know that's happened to me. Or we might not know what's normal to say or do in a situation. Like, I'm crying. Is that okay? I'm not crying. Is that okay? So, it's great that we're having this conversation so we can open up a little bit more about understanding grief and how it shows up for different people in their lives.

[00:01:39]>> Yeah, this conversation really means a lot to me. Grief can show up in different ways in life. And I think Taylor does a really great job in this episode of sitting down with Hannah Swald and Dr. Angela Prister and just talking through what grief actually looks like in real life.

[00:01:53]>> There is so much honesty in this conversation. There's also a lot of hope and there is so much grace for wherever people are in the grieving process or in the healing process.

[00:02:06]>> So, wherever you're at today, whether it's something that you're going through or you're trying to support someone else who is, we really think there's something helpful in this episode for you. This is navigating grief healing during and after loss.

[00:02:22]Okay. Hey. Hi everyone. It's Taylor Thurlo talking today with two lovely guests about navigating grief. First, Dr. Angela Prister is joining us. She's a clinical psychologist and a minister.

[00:02:32]You may remember her from episode 8, How Should I Feel About My Feelings? She has a wealth of professional and biblical knowledge when it comes to helping people with their mental health. And I love that she combines her knowledge of these two areas to help people. So, Angela, welcome to the episode.

[00:02:47]>> Thank you. It's a privilege.

[00:02:48]>> Our other guest, Hannah Soul, is a great friend of mine. She's a high school English teacher and a minister. And you may have heard her husband Nick on episode 27, Leading as a Young Adult.

[00:02:58]And if you know Hannah, you know that she's passionate, she's loving, overall fun person to be around. And Hannah has experienced a couple of very close and tragic losses. And I believe that what she's learned from that is going to be very helpful to this discussion. So Hannah, welcome to the episode.

[00:03:14]>> Thanks, Taylor. Yeah, this is definitely a difficult conversation, but an important one, so I'm glad we're having it. Thanks for having me.

[00:03:21]>> Yeah. So, I'm thankful that we're gonna talk about handling loss and dealing with grief because it's an uncomfortable and sometimes painful part of life, but it's a part of life that many people are going to deal with at least once, if not multiple times throughout their lives.

[00:03:36]It's a reality that we deal with until Jesus Christ comes back. But God wants us to enjoy life, right? He wants us to be joyful. And we can have that. We can have joy despite the losses that we face. But we do want to handle loss in a healthy way so that we can move through it. It's not something that we want to shove under a rug or pretend that it didn't happen. So we're going to talk about it. So Angela, I'd like to start off with how would you describe grief and why do we grieve? What is this?

[00:04:05]>> That's a great question. Thank you, Taylor. So there are people who actually research this in psychology, psychologists who research the subject of grief. And a great definition that I found that they came up with is that grief is what we experience when something meaningful changes, ends or is taken away. So obviously if someone we care about loses their life, of course that's something meaningful to us and it ends or it's taken away. So it is a natural human emotion. God talks about it. We have great people in the Bible who God records as they wept. Abraham, David, even the verse Jesus wept.

[00:04:40]Ecclesiastes talks about how there's a time to weep and a time to laugh. So, it's a natural part of the human existence and it can include more than just losing someone we love. There are non-death losses also. You have a break up relationship, you lose a job, moving away from familiar areas. We could also grieve those things.

[00:05:03]>> And grief can be affected by a lot of different things. It's not going to be the same even within the same individual. is not going to be the same.

[00:05:11]So, it could depend on how close you were to that person. It could depend on your cultural beliefs, your religious beliefs, but generally grief is stronger when the loss is unexpected. So, if you have an elderly relative, you're not going to be shocked if something happens to them, if they pass away or fall asleep. But if it's a young person, you're a young person and young person dies, that's not supposed to happen.

[00:05:34]That kind of catches us by surprise. So the grief in those situations might be a little more intense.

[00:05:40]>> That's interesting. Yeah. That it's related to your expectation, >> right?

[00:05:45]>> It's heavily related to expectation. And that can be tricky at times because one of the great things about our God is that he is a God of deliverance. He is a God of healing. He can help us in so many categories of life. And so as Christians, we have great expectations when we're dealing with challenges. But at times, you know, we know the reality of life sometimes is death or loss related things. So at times we do face these things and we may not be expecting them, >> right?

[00:06:12]>> Yeah. We're praying for the opposite and that can really catch us off guard and hurt because of the expectations. That's I think that's something really interesting to be aware of. And how would you describe Hannah grief as opposed to other emotions like sadness?

[00:06:30]Yeah, the first time I would say I truly experienced the feeling of grief was what you referenced when I lost one of my best friends in college and we were both 22 at the time. So, it was very unexpected, very sudden and I had experienced grief before like I had lost grandparents like Angela was talking about, but this was a totally totally different thing. It's not like sadness or depression. It's really its own emotion. And it's amazing how God designed the body and the brain to handle this type of extreme loss because grief it's almost like um a civ or a filter. Because I think if we were to feel all of it all at once, >> right?

[00:07:15]>> Just like literally die. Like our hearts would just stop working.

[00:07:18]>> Yeah.

[00:07:19]>> From how much it hurts and how heavy it is. grief. You may have heard it described as like waves or a roller coaster. When it's kind of like that, where the brain is just letting in as much as you can handle and keep surviving, it can really throw you. I mean, when I was first truly experiencing grief, like I mentioned in my early 20s, I was like, "God, why did you why did you make it like this? Why did you design it this?"

[00:07:46]>> Yeah. But eventually I got to remembering that, you know, death and pain was never God's will. That was not part of God's original design. In the beginning, the original paradise, there was to be no death or dying, no heartbreak. And God's heart was for us to not have to experience grief and pain. And ultimately, in the end, when Jesus Christ comes back, we won't. There will be no more crying.

[00:08:11]>> Yeah.

[00:08:11]>> Every tear will be wiped away as it says in Revelation 21. So that's something to look forward to. And right now we're just living in that in between Yeah.

[00:08:20]>> God's ultimate design. And and grief is really it protects us. It's how we process. And it helps kind of hold us over in between those two tides.

[00:08:29]>> Yeah. It's an interesting way to look at it.

[00:08:31]>> Helps us to process something that is just extremely difficult. It's too much to handle at once. So, Angela, is there a a normal, I guess, or or something that's not normal when it comes to grieving when you're helping somebody or when you're dealing it with yourself?

[00:08:46]How do you know when you're what's going on in your mind is getting okay, I should get seek professional help?

[00:08:52]What's what's normal here?

[00:08:54]>> Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question because everybody wants to know what's normal. Am I not crying enough? Am I crying too much? You know, has this been going on too long or is this not long enough? So, uh, the normal is very wide.

[00:09:08]Think of it very wide because it's based on so many different factors. We talked about before how, you know, it's going to be different if a young person who you don't expect to die dies versus, you know, a grandparent or someone who's been struggling with a terminal illness for a long time. There's cultural beliefs about death. There's family differences. There's religious differences. I know many years ago people used to talk about stages of grief and people kind of expected that when I first find out about losing someone I'm going to go through this stage and then after that next stage and the next stage and then but the research doesn't support that. There's no support that people go through these different stages. Now they they tend to refer to them more as phases and there's some overlap. There could be overlap between phases and even regression to a previous phase. I found this really good quote that kind of sums up how they look at grief. Now, someone said, "Perhaps the most important contribution to the current conceptualization of grief reactions is the recognition of the uniqueness of the grieving process to each individual and family. The empirical or the research literature has not supported the concept of linear stages or phases in mourning. bereaveved individuals often experience contrasting emotions at the same time and oscillate between them. So one day you're having a good day, the next day you're you're crying all day. So it's like, what is going on? I thought I was getting better. Now I'm going backwards. But no, that's part of the normal grieving process. So they say instead of focusing on ensuring individuals are grieving the quote correct close quote way the emphasis now is on recognizing the multiple variables that affect the grieving process as well as the particular individual style of expressing grief. Thus, the main goal of grief and bereiement is care to support the individual's unique and personal grieving process without a preconceived notion of how that process should present or develop. So again, people some people are very emotional, some people are not. So the people who are very emotional think well you know I why am I still crying? Nobody else is crying. And the person who's not crying is like everybody else is still crying.

[00:11:23]Why am I crying? You know it's everybody's unique. Everybody has different personalities. Then again the goal is to not get stuck in what they call acute grief. So let me talk about that for a minute. And the people who again who research grief make a distinction between acute grief. What happens immediately after you find out about the loss and what they call integrated grief. So acute grief, think about you you just found out about what happened within the first few days.

[00:11:53]There's this intense yearning. There's longing for that person who is deceased.

[00:11:58]You feel sorrow. It feels all encompassing. It's painful and affects everything. It affects your physical body. Maybe you don't want to eat. You don't want to be around people. It affects your thoughts. Some people start questioning spiritual beliefs that they've had. It affects their interactions with other people. They don't really want to be around people.

[00:12:17]This is all a part of that when it first hits you. Like I think Hannah said, sometimes it comes like this. So it's like God's way of protecting us so we don't explode but we have all these different things that happen but then we the goal is to move towards integrated grief and there's no time level on this.

[00:12:36]Again it's going to vary depending on the relationship with the person and what happened but the feelings and behaviors are integrated into a new normal. You start to accept the reality of the loss. You start to recognize the memories that you have about the person.

[00:12:51]not so focused on the loss but on the memories, the good times that you have with that person. The grief is no longer dominating your whole everything you think about. It's not like you think about it all day every day as maybe in those initial phases. It's a gradual I want I like that it's a gradual return to more normaly maybe you know right after the degree if you weren't able to concentrate in school you had a hard time you couldn't even imagine going to work and doing your usual job but over time it gets to be where you start getting back to that you start accepting what happened and you start again it's not going to be the same again that whole idea of a new normal when you lose someone when you lose something that's meaningful to you, it affects you, but doesn't have to be all negative. It can help you to grow.

[00:13:42]>> Yeah.

[00:13:43]>> Some of what Angela just said would have been, >> man, so helpful. Some of those definitions would have been so helpful when I was first going through it. I will say in layman's terms, someone did a minister came to my house uh after Corey had fallen asleep and I was in some serious need of help because I was dealing with what you were describing.

[00:14:04]Just back and forth emotions. I was like, am I going crazy? Am I losing my mind? growing up in the word, having learned the word about controlling your thoughts and you know, think about what you're thinking about and all of a sudden it's just like I'm flooded constantly >> feeling just a range of emotions. I was angry at him. I was angry at the situ then I'm but I'm missing him so bad. I mean it was just I thought am I >> completely losing my mind and I was genuinely concerned about that. And this minister came over to my house and essentially said what you just shared Angela. She said, "However you're feeling right now," and this was obviously in the acute grief stage, "However you're feeling is normal, and you don't need to add to your what you're going through by worrying about how you're feeling. It's >> grief is like that, you know, you just you got to ride the wave. The only way out is through." Mhm.

[00:15:02]>> And you know she shared experience from her own life and losing her dad and how I think that had happened you know a couple decades prior and how still sometimes um you know certain things triggered that and how that's just part of grief. So knowing in that acute grief stage that it is going to be a wild ride and you may feel a lot of things at once but that is you know as as normal of an experience that it is. That's how humans react to something as big as a loss like that.

[00:15:32]>> I think it's very helpful. That really helps me put my brain around it when I'm thinking about helping people going through it to understand, okay, this is kind of the phase, you know, that you're in. You just experienced this this tragic loss. The emotions may vary. You know, it may dominate your thinking, so to speak. You know, it just floods your thinking. But to know that all right, it's going to fade as we keep moving through this, as we keep handling this, as we keep moving day day to day. Um, I love that integrated, you know, it's not like it's just gone all of a sudden, right?

[00:16:06]>> One day you just wake up and it's it's gone. It's very helpful to think about that because I know people, you know, that I've lost. It's so weird how years after the fact something happens and >> you're just like, you know, tearing up thinking about them. Something reminds you of it. It's, you know, where did that come from? but you've integrated into life but it's still there with you a little bit of it. So, so I'm thinking about you know helping people with this help helping them to move through it like you said Hannah can we you know Angela can we put any kind of timeline on this where we can say this is the general framework of acute and this when you should move into integrated.

[00:16:42]>> Yeah. Um, it's so I'm hesitant to put a time on that and so are the people who spend their lives researching this because it varies so much between individuals with your personality, the circumstances of the how the person died, the how close were you to this person. So you know obviously if you're not that close to the person or if you didn't have a good very close relationship you that was an acquaintance that period of grief is going to be a lot shorter than somebody who if it's all a sudden and you're very close to them you know imagine a parent losing a child that's going to be very unexpected. Most parents anticipate we talked about expectations before parents do not expect to lose a child. The expectation is that the child is going to live longer than the parent. So when that doesn't happen, that's very shocking to the system.

[00:17:32]>> Sure.

[00:17:32]>> Um and so, you know, it be very hard to put the time on it. But again, you want to have even if it's gradual, you want to be moving towards that integrated grief. You want to be able to get back to functioning. That's what psychologists kind of look at function.

[00:17:47]What is your function? What were you what were you in school before this?

[00:17:51]Were you at work? Were you a parent? If you're no longer parenting and feel like you can't go to work and you know months have gone by and you're not able to function, that's when we start getting concerned as psychologists. There's a really good the World Health Organization came up with I think a really good definition of mental health and they say mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn and work well and contribute to their community. So we want to be able to again not rushing, not pushing people to that, but supporting people as they move from that acute phase to the integrated phase. you know, when there's no movement to that integrated phase, when the person is like they're still in the acute phase and it's been a it's been a month or two, I would be concerned if there was some dysfunctional coping, unhealthy coping strategies or people are now feel like they can't go through the day without a drink, an alcohol. If they start turning into drugs, they start drowning themselves in food. Those are more unhealthy coping strategies. I would be wanting to help people engage in things that are good for overall health.

[00:19:07]>> How are you sleeping? Sleep is a good barometer. If you're not sleeping, we need to help you to get back to where you're sleeping. Again, that's part of the the healing process. You the food that you eat, exercise, those are all things that's going to help you to heal.

[00:19:23]>> In integrated grief, you can still have and you will still have flare-ups. I'm not really sure, you know, what to >> Yeah. Waves. Like you said, waves.

[00:19:33]>> Yeah. Yeah. Waves. You don't need to panic about that or think you're returning to acute grief. Like just uh, you know, a couple months ago, I was watching the Olympics with my husband and I love the Olympics. We're having dinner. You know, we're having a great time. Nice dinner. And one of the commentators said something like, "This pair goes together like peanut butter and jelly." And that's something that Corey, the friend I referenced, would say. He would say, "Uh, you're the jelly to my peanut butter because peanut butter is way, you know, the more masculine of the two." And when the Olympic commentator said that, all of a sudden, I'm crying. And, you know, Nick looks up from his dinner and it's like, "What? What happened?" You know, and and at this point, Corey died 12 years ago.

[00:20:19]And we were best friends for all of college. So, that was four years. So, at this point, you know, he's been gone longer than I ever knew him. Mhm.

[00:20:26]>> And yet 12 years later, boom. And and I've had peanut butter and jellies. I've talked about peanut butter and jelly.

[00:20:31]Like, you know, it's not every time that that happens I'm crying. And on this particular day, whatever it was, boom, it, you know, hit me. So, that is to be expected in integrated grief. Yeah.

[00:20:43]>> Things are going to, you know, trigger those feelings.

[00:20:46]>> Yeah.

[00:20:47]>> But that doesn't you don't have to, you know, panic or over analyze that. That doesn't mean it's back to how it was in that initial.

[00:20:55]>> Yeah.

[00:20:56]>> Yeah. Thank you for saying that. That's a great point.

[00:20:58]>> You went into work the next day after that after that. Uh >> I was able to go into work after the after the peanut [clears throat] butter and jelly.

[00:21:06]>> Um Angelie mentioned, you know, we we want to support and help people to move through this process. And you know, if we see things like not sleeping, not being able to function, that's kind of a red flag. Grieving is for me personally it's just uncomfortable I think because of the unknowns to be around someone who's ungrieving. Am I going to make it worse by talking about this? How can I support this? So I think there's a tendency for people to just kind of kind of like not want to be around it because it's an uncomfortable thing. But what can we do if someone has experienced a loss whether it's death or something else? What can we do to help people when they are grieving? We're believers and believers believe. So I think in a situation like this, let's believe to walk in love. There's a great promise that I really appreciate and it's Isaiah 50 and verse4 and it says, "The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned."

[00:22:01]The learn is a disciple. You know, a disciple is someone who continues in the word. The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He wakenth morning by morning. He wakenth my ear to hear as to learn it. So you just want to believe God to know what to say and to do.

[00:22:21]Sometimes the best thing to do is just to be with the person.

[00:22:24]>> Like in Job when his friends when they first heard about what happened, they just came and sat and they were with him. I remember when I lost my parents when people would just come and say, "I'm sorry for your loss." I used to think that was a trit thing to say.

[00:22:37]People say that all the time. I'm sorry for your loss.

[00:22:39]>> Yeah.

[00:22:40]>> But it really did mean something to me at that time. And I also remember when I had my parents' funeral, they were living in a different state than what I lived in. But the believers were aware what happened and some of them came to the wake and to the funeral. And I remember when I got up front to speak, just looking out into the audience and seeing them there just meant so much. It just really ministered to my heart. So just believing God for a way to be there. God knows that person's heart and God knows what's best going to minister to them. And God could work in us to know the best thing to say and to do. So I think just believing to walk in love.

[00:23:21]>> Yeah.

[00:23:22]>> Is the first thing, the first step to tap into God and his ability to comfort.

[00:23:28]Corinthians says that God is the God of all comfort. Who comforts us in all our tribulation or mental pressure so that we can comfort others. Yeah. We need to believe that that is something that we could do.

[00:23:39]>> That's great. Awesome.

[00:23:40]>> But again, that personal presence in the immediiacy, I think it really means a lot when you hear about it. Just call and say, "Hey, I I hurt. I'm so sorry.

[00:23:49]Are there things I could do for you?"

[00:23:50]And I think it's even better if you can come up with specific because honestly at the time of the loss, your brain is not even thinking.

[00:23:58]>> Yeah.

[00:23:59]>> You know, it's like it's like like a fog is how I remember experience. Somebody says, "Can I bring you some food? You know, you need me to take care take your dog out for a walk. You know, coming up with things that they may not be thinking about.

[00:24:12]>> Yeah, that's great. Be specific. Hannah, what about you? What was helpful for you?

[00:24:16]>> Well, I got a couple I kind of kind of thought about this in stages.

[00:24:22]I just second everything that Angela said. In the immediate aftermath, being proactive, you know, if you if you care about someone who's grieving, being proactive is really everything. But personal presence is amazing. Yeah, >> if you can just go and relieve yourself of the pressure that you talked about of like, you know, am I going to make it worse? It it's bad. I don't know that you, you know, really make it worse. Be being there is huge. You don't even have to have the right thing to say. Just being with people helping them with tasks. But when I say be proactive, it's great to say, "How can I help?" But it's better to say, "I'm dropping off food at your house." Or, "I'm here with a fresh set of sheets." like, "Can you hand me yours?"

[00:25:06]>> I'll wash them.

[00:25:08]>> Um, you know, like be offer here's a menu of things that I could do. What would be the most helpful right now?

[00:25:15]Just spending time together, sitting with them, and just acknowledging that it sucks.

[00:25:21]>> Mhm.

[00:25:21]>> Uh, period, I think, was really helpful.

[00:25:24]The thing that ultimately in the long term brings the most comfort is uh what we refer to as the hope. And when we say that, we mean the hope of Jesus Christ's return. The fact that he's going to come back and the dead in Christ are going to rise. So shall we ever be with the Lord.

[00:25:41]That we get to spend eternity together and you get to see your loved one again and spend eternity being together. That is really comforting. in the immediate aftermath when you jump straight to there, that can be kind of challenging because what sucks about the situation isn't that you're never going to see that person again. It's that they're not here right now.

[00:26:04]>> Yeah.

[00:26:04]>> Like, oh, I wanted her to be in my wedding. I want to be able to call my friend and talk about this.

[00:26:10]>> So, having someone help you carry that in the immediate aftermath, I think, is is really helpful.

[00:26:17]>> It's like an acknowledgement of the loss.

[00:26:19]>> Yes.

[00:26:20]>> Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's okay. We we want to encourage people with the hope of Christ's return. That is the that is the anchor, >> but it's okay to acknowledge and you know, yes, >> talk about the loss. Yeah, that's very helpful. So, you talked about the immediate. What's next then?

[00:26:34]>> And then I'm splitting it into the mid aftermath and the long.

[00:26:38]>> All right. Okay. All right. There we go.

[00:26:40]>> In the mid aftermath, I think support can drop off like pretty close after a loss. you know, keep everyone's there for you like right when it happens.

[00:26:51]Yeah.

[00:26:51]>> Um but then there's kind of that odd in between period. So if you are somebody who cares about the griever, just continue don't slack in your support.

[00:27:00]Continue to reach out beyond the initial aftermath. You can share memories. If you also knew the loved one, offer to share stories. Also, just helping people be patient with themselves if they're frustrated that they're not over it yet because you really never get over it.

[00:27:19]>> I'm doing air [clears throat] quotes since y'all can't see me, but you just get through it.

[00:27:24]>> And and so if people if this is new for people or they're struggling to be patient with themselves, you can reassure them with that. And then just remind people like it will not always be this way. That reassurance I think is really comforting. Like right now it is all consuming. It's so overwhelming. You just with time, with the word, with the household, with that healing, it's not always going to be like it is now. So, you just got to keep taking it. I mean, truly minute by minute. Sometimes those reminders, I think, are really helpful, too.

[00:27:54]>> Well, Hannah, before you go into the long term, I want to I was just thinking about something. Sometimes if it's if you're the the person who's arranging everything, you're the child and it's your parent and you're taking care of all the funeral things and you got to sell the house and you got to handle all their belongings. You're so busy with that you don't may not really have time to grieve. So you might be in that mid what you would think would be mid and now you're really really accepting the loss now. Yeah.

[00:28:21]>> Because you were too busy handling what had to be handled. don't get on. Well, you know, my acute phase didn't come until a month later. That's because you were so busy selling the house and doing all these things that had to get done.

[00:28:34]Yeah.

[00:28:34]>> So, don't be surprised if it if some of that acute stuff comes a little later because you were so busy handling the things that needed to get handled.

[00:28:41]>> Yeah.

[00:28:41]>> Absolutely.

[00:28:42]>> Okay.

[00:28:43]>> Yeah.

[00:28:44]>> Or maybe people think they uh somehow escaped it, you know. Oh, I guess I didn't have any, you know, right?

[00:28:49]>> But here's just Yeah. Right.

[00:28:51]>> Okay.

[00:28:52]>> Yeah.

[00:28:52]>> All right. Let's talk about the long term then. long aftermath. I would say like I shared with my husband in the peanut butter jelly story, don't be surprised by flare-ups, just let them talk through it. My husband wasn't like, "Oh, you're still crying about this."

[00:29:06]Let them work through that and uh help support in that way. And then you can get to a point where you can joke about not the loss necessarily, but about the loved one. You can be lighthearted about the loved one. Like another best friend that I lost was her name was Anna and we had a lot of inside jokes that we had and my husband and I have adopted some of those inside jokes like we still you know we tell those jokes you can say the person's name I think when you're supporting someone grieving you know sometimes when people talk to me and then their voice will drop and they'll say and initially it's just so much pain but you can get to a place where you obviously still have pain for the loss but you can remember the joy and the happy memories um and in the long term you You should you can you can talk about that person with joy and everything doesn't have to be surrounding the death, I guess, is what I'm saying. You can >> you can just be lighthearted and and have those >> Yeah.

[00:30:04]>> moments and say their name and still talk about it and be glaring about the loved one.

[00:30:09]>> Yeah. On that note, there's this really interesting thing that Angela, you sent this to me in preparation for this, but I think it's just so interesting from scripture. In Joshua, after Moses has died, they grieve for I think it was like 30 days.

[00:30:25]>> I'll pull it up to Joshua 1:2. Moses, my servant, is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.

[00:30:37]If you read through Joshua, I think it's like over 50 times Moses is mentioned.

[00:30:43]And it's in reference to what I promised to Moses, I promised to you. What I did for Moses, I'm going to do for you. But God doesn't just say, "Okay, Moses is dead. Not going to talk about them anymore."

[00:30:53]>> Right?

[00:30:53]>> That was, you know, when you share that, it's just wow. You know, God is referring to these people who are not around anymore. It's okay to talk about them. It's okay to reference the things that they did and and the impact that they had on your lives. And yes, they are gone, but it's not like something we need to be afraid to talk about. So, I think it's very helpful.

[00:31:11]>> Right. Absolutely.

[00:31:12]Anything else on things to keep in mind when helping somebody with grief that you guys want to share?

[00:31:20]>> I remember recently someone who had lost their husband, I had called in to check on them and they said sometimes when they would cry about it, people would say, "Don't cry. Don't cry. You have to be strong." It's like, "Well, wait a minute. Crying is part of the emotional part of losing someone. There's nothing wrong about crying. It's not a sign of weakness. As a matter of fact, some people say that's part of how you heal that releasing that emotion will help you to actually heal. So you're crying because you had a good man, you lost something good, something meaningful in your life changed. So it's definitely not a weakness. I like you said Taylor when we people lose people it feels uncomfortable. We were expecting that person to get healed and to live. When that person died, it's like now now what do I do? I don't know what to say. So if the person cries, it doesn't mean it's a sign of weakness. Again, we have plenty of biblical examples where people wept and cried. I don't know where we got the idea that you shouldn't cry. Especially men, oh no, men shouldn't be crying.

[00:32:20]Little boys, they shouldn't cry. I don't know where that came from. That's definitely not biblical.

[00:32:25]It's not plenty of great men in the Bible who cried. So, it's definitely okay to cry. Again, that the idea is moving toward that integrated grief, getting back to functioning, and even like Hannah said, even when you get that wave, it doesn't knock you out for 30 days.

[00:32:43]>> Yeah.

[00:32:44]>> You're not back to that acute grief phase.

[00:32:46]>> Yeah.

[00:32:47]>> You just had a little, you know, >> a wave came in, knocked you down, now I'm getting back up and I'm moving ahead.

[00:32:53]>> So, we we touched about this uh a little bit. Can we talk about transitioning into integrated grief and what that looks like for us as Christians? We've got an advantage here. You know, we've got the hope of Christ's return that can strengthen us. What does that look like for us as we transition into integrated grief? And what can we look forward to?

[00:33:13]What can life look like after, you know, the acute grief phase?

[00:33:18]>> Well, I know after I lost my parents, what helped me is was thinking about the whole realizing that Jesus Christ could come back any day. you know, really believing that he could come back any day. Any day now, Jesus Christ comes back and I'm seeing my father again. You know, I know my father is is a born again believer, so I know I'm going to see him again. I had read a book one time about a woman who she was not a believer, but her husband was. So, she really believed that she was never going to see her husband again.

[00:33:46]>> And that helped me to see what the Bible meant when it says we don't sorrow as others who have no hope. That woman had no hope of ever seeing her husband again. And we don't sorrow as others who have no hope. We have that hope, the hope of Christ's return that anchors us and provides us strength and helps us to be able to again claim that verse in Corinthians that we are comforted by God and enables us to comfort others. And even people who don't have the hope like we do, we can still walk in love. we could still believe to be with them and support them in these situations. And there's even an area in psychology now that they refer to as post-traumatic growth. You be people can change in a positive way after going through a loss like this. Again, once you've gone through grief, to me, it better enabled me to be able to support somebody else who's going through grief. It helps you to appreciate what God has done for me.

[00:34:45]It helps me to appreciate life more. H >> when you lose someone or you suffer for that loss, there's things that you might develop a new interest that maybe you didn't have time or didn't consider before. So, you definitely can grow in your personal strength. You could grow spiritually. You could grow in your appreciation in life after suffering a loss. That's kind of like making the lemonade out of the lemons.

[00:35:09]>> Mhm.

[00:35:10]>> Yeah. I guess for me, life does keep going, which is initially one of the hardest parts of grief because it feels like your world has stopped and you're just not really sure how everyone else is going on with their day and your whole world has changed and theirs isn't. But eventually, while you still have that grief with you, you do keep living life. because we've mostly focused on if you're losing a loved one, if you've lost a loved one and someone who loved you, you know that they wouldn't want the end of their life to be the end of yours too, >> right? Um, so there's absolutely more. Another thing that I would say is as you're getting through that, back to the joy, just reminding yourself that it's not always going to be like this.

[00:36:00]Time is just one of your biggest assets.

[00:36:03]just time as you keep putting distance between just continue and you move forward until you're ready to fly again.

[00:36:10]I think about there's that Martin Luther King Jr. quote and it's something like uh if you can't fly run, if you can't run, walk. If you can't walk, crawl, just keep moving forward. Mhm.

[00:36:20]>> If you, you know, adopt that mindset and you take it one day at a time and you keep moving forward, you can and you will get back to a place where you can have that happiness and that joy and those memories can come back alongside that pain that you may still feel, but there's still life, you know.

[00:36:37]>> Yeah. Right.

[00:36:38]>> Your loved one would want you to live your life. God has important things for you to do. And you can help people, like Angela said, in a new way. you can identify with people and maybe help people walk the same journey, but really, you know, staying super connected to God, continuing to go to his word and claim the realities of the hope, spending time with the household and time, some of those are just your best assets in being able to continue to live your life with joy and purpose as your loved one would have wanted you to.

[00:37:08]>> Yeah. And I think what Taylor said about Joshua, I mean, Moses needed him to keep moving. you know, Moses got as far as he could. Yeah.

[00:37:17]>> He needed Joshua to do that. And I'm sure when we're all gathered together and, you know, all the after all the resurrections and everything, you know, Moses going to be very proud of what Joshua accomplished. And Joshua can be proud. It would not have been good for anybody had Joshua just thrown up his hands and says, "Moses was the man. I can't do it. I I'll never be like Moses." But no, he worked with what he had and he kept moving. I'm sure that he was he had to have been very close to Moses. I mean, look at all the things they did together. So, but he, you know, he allowed God to comfort him and he kept moving and and he accomplished what God needed him to accomplish. And like you said, Hannah, we all have things to accomplish for God. We can't afford to get stuck in acute grief. We need God needs us, our communities need us to keep moving and fulfilling our purposes.

[00:38:06]>> Absolutely.

[00:38:07]>> This has been extremely helpful to me from a lot of different angles. In some ways, I think about, oh man, I could have handled that better when that person was going through grief. But that's part of life, live and learn. And to know how this works, how this is a natural part of life, and to know how we can handle this, to know how we can move through it. And I think just in the moment knowing, okay, I'm going to get through this. These feelings I am feeling are going to fade. I'm going to grow through this. And Hannah, I have a lot of respect for you. appreciate what you and Nick do. You just live life, serve God so much when you get to know the losses that you've had. It's really inspiring that is a part of who you are, but man, you're not a mopy person.

[00:38:49]You're not a [laughter] a down andout person. So, I think anybody who knows Hannah knows that.

[00:38:54]Absolutely. So, anything else on this topic that you guys wanted to share before we close it out here?

[00:39:00]>> Well, I think what you just mentioned, Taylor, about feeling bad about not handling right, I think we've all been there. I remember when I was a new fellowship coordinator and we had uh one of our people in our fellowship, her father was sick and um we knew there was a possibility of him falling asleep but we were all believing him to get healed but when he fell asleep nobody in our fellowship went to the funeral uh or the wake or anything and she came to our house. I was living in a h house with my branch coordinator and his wife at the time and she confronted us >> for not coming >> to be there for her. And before I could say anything, my branch coordinator says, "You are absolutely right.

[00:39:36]>> We should have been there." And that was a good memory for me. So like you said, we all live and learn.

[00:39:42]>> Yeah.

[00:39:43]>> If you made a mistake before, now we know what they said that expression, when you know better, you do better.

[00:39:48]>> Right. Right.

[00:39:49]>> So, you know, now we know that we don't have to be afraid. We don't have to be a little awkward. We just need to believe God and and go do what we need to do to support someone when they have a loss like that. Whether it's a death or whether it's a non death related loss, when it's a divorce or when even if someone has someone who died from a non-conventional ways, things that are stigmatized like somebody dies from a drug overdose or suicide, we can still be there for those people that still >> God still does not want that person to suffer alone. you know, we could be there for that person maybe when other people aren't.

[00:40:27]>> Yeah. And doing something is the best thing to do. Doing nothing or saying, "I don't want to reach out to this person cuz I don't want to say the wrong thing or I don't want to go over to their house cuz I don't even know what I would say." If you really want to support them, just doing something is going to be amazing. You can just go over and say, "Hey, I'm here for you." And that action is a lot. So for people who are helping, just jumping in there, reaching out, saying something is always better.

[00:40:57]And for anyone who is listening to the podcast who is grieving, our hearts are with you. Wish I could hug you. Hug you right here through um the podcast. I'm so sorry for what you're going through.

[00:41:08]We know how hard this can be, but hopefully some of the tips that we've shared will help you know that you're not alone and that the only way out is through. You just keep you keep going and it will not always be this way and you will really get through it. So, we have great resources that we always attach with the podcasts of local fellowships and the household and how to stay connected to people if you don't have a community, but leaning into God and his word and a community and time are really all super helpful.

[00:41:38]>> That's great.

[00:41:39]>> Amen to that.

[00:41:40]>> Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing your expertise and your hearts on this topic.

[00:41:43]I think it's not an easy topic, but it's very important. and I think it's going to be very helpful for people that we talk about it and help them through this. So, I really appreciate you guys joining us today. Thank you so much.

[00:41:54]>> Thank you for the invitation.

[00:41:56]>> Yeah, thanks Taylor. I love you.

[00:41:58]>> All right, that'll be it. Thanks, folks.

[00:42:01]>> Thank you, Taylor, Hannah, and Angela for coming on the podcast and letting us listen in to such an important conversation.

[00:42:08]>> It really was. It was really important for them to talk about all this. And I think one of the biggest things that stood out to me is how much grace we need to give ourselves and others in these processes.

[00:42:19]>> Yeah. I also love that they mentioned that there is not a timeline and there's not necessarily a right way to grieve, but there are signs that can indicate when we do need more support. And even knowing what that looks like is really helpful to know. Also, if we're helping someone, it is so important that we show up. Even if we don't know exactly what to say or do, just being there for someone and being as loving as we can really matters.

[00:42:50]>> It definitely does. And so, if you're listening to this and perhaps grief is something that you're walking through right now, we just want you to know that we are so thankful that you joined us today and that we are definitely believing for continued comfort and strength for you. And if someone came to mind while you were listening, this might be really helpful and meaningful episode for them to listen to. So, thanks for spending time with us and we'll be with you again soon on another episode of Lighting the Way. Today, we let God's word shine in our [music] light.

[00:43:30]He lights the path.

[00:43:35]What a show. [music] That was God's word and conversation. Nothing but the truth.

[00:43:39]A podcast backed up [singing] by biblical proof. And the show keeps rolling. Can't miss the next edition.

[00:43:44]What's happening [music] next? Turn it up and take a listen.

[00:43:53]And it's [music] kind of strange, but God is so wonderful. Traumatic situations can often heighten our reliance on God. It may shake our confidence and our own ability to make good choices, but then we learn to lean on God even greater. I know Vern and I were talking about a verse in Hebrews about this where in weakness, people were made strong. As people, we don't have all the answers, right? We need God's guidance more than ever, especially when you're in a traumatic situation. God's word and the principles in it will bring healing faster. And it will also help them keep their moral value system at a higher level, which is so important. God's got answers. And if we've got the ability to help somebody going through a divorce with those answers from God's word, it will just bring that healing to pass [music] in such a faster way.

[00:44:58]Thanks for [music] listening to Lighting the Way today. Join us next time as we discuss biblical topics letting the word of God light our way in life. [music]