Grief is relentless. The only way to get through grief is to grieve. The only way to get through the pain is to feel and process the pain. One of the best ways to manage the stress and anxiety that…
Perhaps your grief will not ‘ruin’ Christmas
We often perceive the holidays as a time of togetherness and joy, where we reunite with families and enjoy the presence of each other. However, what we do not talk about is the grief that often coincides with the Christmas…
Counting your blessings instead of sheep
“Have you not heard anything I’ve said in the last four weeks!? Just what do I have to be grateful about?” The elderly widower in my grief group was incensed that the fourth session was focused on gratitude. The topic…
What the grieving wish you knew about the holidays
Holidays often are difficult for those who grieve the death of a loved one. Truth be told, most would rather avoid the season altogether and disappear until Jan. 2. We can’t take their grief from them, but we certainly can…
Lessons in grieving the loss of a child: From ‘maybe so‘ to ‘it is so’
It was my last conversation with, let’s say, Tim, a close friend for six decades. Our stockpile of trust built a sturdy container strong enough to hold honest end-of-life conversations. Tim is dying and he knows it. Each telephone conversation…
By doing everything ‘wrong,’ this California church found the right way
First Baptist Church of Pasadena, Calif., is succeeding by doing everything wrong. Wrong, at least, by conventional standards of what leads to church growth and health today. The church has no social media presence, intentionally. Video of Sunday morning worship…
Justice sated in The Handmaid’s Tale
The much-anticipated return of The Handmaid’s Tale, a TV series based on the post-apocalyptic novel by Margaret Atwood, was just released. Last season ended with the murder of Commander Fred Waterford, who played a large part in the creation of…
Glimpses of grief reveal reality for women in ministry
During the summer of my Clinical Pastoral Education residency at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, all eight of us in the cohort experienced many deaths and sleepless on-call shifts. One day during education, we were noticeably and collectively “out of it.”…
Here’s why cremation is now chosen after 57% of all U.S. deaths
The ongoing surge in U.S. cremation rates can accurately be described as “stunning,” author and grief educator Harold Ivan Smith said. “When I was in mortuary school in 1966, cremation was probably done in 1% of cases,” said Smith, also…