Starting Another Year on Our Grief Journey

Well, we have started a new year and if you are like me you probably wonder how we got here so fast.  As we look back over last year we may remember things we wished we did not have to experience; but we probably had some unexpected joys that came our way, also.

The journey of grief is not predictable.  People often ask grieving parents how they are doing.  It’s not an easy question to answer, is it?  How we are doing changes from week to week, from day to day, even from moment to moment.

In this journey of grief that takes us through the dark world of pain and sorrow there are things that we can’t understand, but there are things we learn as we go along, and although each one’s grief is different, we share a common bond that makes it possible for us to help each other by sharing our experiences.

As Director of BASIS, a ministry to bereaved parents, I am involved in trying to provide comfort, support, and helpful resources to grieving parents. In this process I have also had the privilege to listen to the stories of many grieving parents and I have been encouraged and blessed by them.

The truth of St Francis’s prayer that “it is in giving we receive” has been proven to me again and again.  That God can take tragedy and work in it to bring something good continues to inspire me.  It was not good that my daughter got leukemia and died, but God has taken something bad and used it to minister to others which at the same time ministers to me.

In this new year let me encourage you in your grief to seek out grieving people and walk with them in their grief journey.  You will help them and they will help you.

“Praise be to the  God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4