This week I closed the workbook on the 6^th Grief Share group I have Facilitated. This time the book will be put away and replaced. Each session I used a different colored ink. Grief Share has revamped their course after 10 years. So all workbooks and leader’s guides are new.  Many things will be changed or moved around. The people on the videos will be new or a bit older😊 I just couldn’t put it on the bookshelf without sharing a few morsels with you.

We are cautioned not to throw clichés around when dealing with someone’s grief. Being that isn’t the purpose of this writing, I will probably toss a few in. I am viewing them as morsels to be chewed and savored. We all suffer loss of one kind or another in our lives. Somethings are from the book, but many are from the videos and our discussion times, and of course some from the Bible.

In the groups we facilitated, there were over 50 people besides the 4 facilitators. A few men, but mostly women. Ranging in age from 25 to 85. Losses of children, spouses, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and close friends.

Everything from miscarriages, accidents, suicide, cancers, covid, terminal illnesses and old age. It seems with each class, one of our attenders will lose a pet during our 13-week classes. Grief levels the ground beneath all our shaky feet. Nothing else seems to matter when your eyes encounter the glance, of another with a shattered heart.

For those that are not familiar with Grief Share it is a Bible based 13-week course for persons that have lost loved ones through a physical death. We do our on Zoom. No one has to leave home to attend.

It was April of 2021 (15 months after Jim passed away) when I first facilitated a group.

*Morsel– the airline stewardess always says “If you’re traveling with someone else, please put your own oxygen mask on first, before trying to help others.” 

The verse that speaks to my heart here is 2 Corinthians 1 verses 3 & 4

God did not comfort us to turn us into comfortable people. Instead He comforted us, so we in turn could help others find that same comfort, God has given us.

So while I worked on my breathing 😊 I let God set the timing for my involvement in Grief Share.

I guess this would be a good place to insert the differences between what I knew about grief, and what I thought I knew about it. What I thought it would be like to lose my husband of nearly 49 years, and what it was really like.  

> I knew my husbands time here are earth was drawing to a close, so in Hope Bennett style I began to get everything lined up. Cemetery, Pastor, music, church etc. I discussed things with Jim, but often I listened as he was talking about things with others. He was very aware that his heart was just plain slowing down.

One of our conversations will give you the flavor of our relationship. I saw a beautiful urn with a gorgeous painting of an eagle and the American flag. I thought it would be a great Tribute to my favorite Viet Nam Vet in the entire world. It was a pure white marble vase. I showed him the picture if it, and he said “I really like the eagle and the flag, but I am telling you right now, you are not burring me in a damn vase” 😊 So I kept the eagle and the flag concept and found a wooden case that met with his approve.  

*Morsel: I have known for many years that God gives grace for living. But I had a front row seat as I watched Him give Jim Bennett the grace for saying goodbye to everyone and everything he had ever known. I found it painfully amazing.

In my mind I could imagine myself getting in my car and going for a very long ride. Road trips are times of great pondering for me. After I hung up the phone from THE CALL, I literally couldn’t move. It felt like I had stepped into hardening cement. I couldn’t get my voice to work. I was frozen. I obviously was able to move, but I felt like I had a hangover from those few minutes, for months.

In my mind I imagined it to be like a tornado that would be horribly loud, very sudden, and very destructive. But as I sat on the phone this spring with my 24-year-old granddaughter who decided it was a good idea to ride out the hurricane, from her home in Tampa, Florida. She said she stepped out on her porch and was shocked at how loud everything seemed, how much the rain hurt, the wind hurt, and the darkness was unexplainable. It was then that I realized I hadn’t been through a tornado, rather through a hurricane. It did not come through, do damage, and quickly go. It instead came and stayed for what seemed like a very long time. It effects your life in ways you couldn’t imagine.

One gentleman on the video said “We have all heard our spouses referred to, as our other half. Until I lost my wife, I didn’t understand the reality of that statement. It really is as if someone took a machete and sliced you in half, from top to bottom. You are trying to learn to walk with one leg, carry the load with one arm, and think with a half of a brain”.

I concur. I didn’t have a clue, the true concept of Gone. Can’t call them, leave a message for them. Email anyone to see how they are. They will never again be waiting for you at the door. Now I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was with me, and he would take me through everything. I just didn’t have a clue what EVERYTHING meant.

Whenever the question comes up about how Grief Share has helped each of us, the number one response is always.  “It helps to know, I am not alone.” It helps to know that someone else is feeling the same sadness as me.

I am not sure that it is always hard to share out of shyness (of which I have no frame of reference) 😊rather there just aren’t words. Each week we go around the group and share our names, where we are from, and what our loss was. I remember when I started Grief Share (as a member) the fall after Jim passed away. I thought that was really stupid…BUT I soon learned it has a purpose.

  *Morsel: Every time you share your hurt, your pain, your secrets it moves you one more step further AWAY from that pit you are so desperately afraid of falling into.

Another popular answer to how Grief Share has helped you. Is I don’t have to pretend. It’s OK if I have had a bad week, and it’s equally OK, if I had a few moments of joy. One life lesson is to stop spending so much time, worrying about what THEY think.  Sad to say, but the truth is we are all quite self-absorbed and probably spend very little time thinking about anyone else.  We all have a small circle of people, sometimes our circle only has room for one ☹.

The conversation between the Skin horse, and the rabbit in the book  (The Velveteen Rabbit.)  The rabbit asked the Skin horse.  “What is real?”  The reply was “It has nothing to do with how you were made. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a very long time.  Not just to play with you as a toy, but REALLY loves you, then you become real.

So on that same track if you have loved, you are real. If you have been loved, you are real. If you lose that love, you are still real. Maybe Real-ly afraid, sad and/or mixed up.  But you are still very much Real.

Remember!  You have to stay Real to Heal.

 *Morsel: Don’t ever put a plastic smile on a broken heart.

The grief journey is at times measurable.

> first, they are your whole life.

> then most of your life.

> then an important part of your life.

> then like that last piece of the puzzle. You know the one you will tear the couch apart to find. Then there it is. You slip it into place. It may not appear as important as some, but it is what finishes the entire picture. The missing piece makes the whole thing complete.  Just as it was intended to be.

I would like to close this week’s Blog with a poem. Though it seems several people have claimed authorship. This copy is credited to Corrie Ten Boom. A Holocaust concentration camp survivor.  I think it describes the value of knowing (God’s got this).   Whatever, our this may be

The Tapestry

My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me.
I cannot choose the colors
He weaveth steadily.

Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I the underside.

Not ’til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll the canvas
And reveal the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful
In the weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned

He knows, He loves, He cares;
Nothing this truth can dim.
He gives the very best to those
Who leave the choice to Him.

Blessings! Thanks for reading.