Have you noticed that the standard-issue advice people tend to give to grieving people is the same advice they give to adolescents? We say:
“It gets better.”
With apologies to everyone who ever said that with good intentions, I keep that kind of advice in my “half-truth” file. The struggles of young adults are not necessarily less than those of adolescents, they’re just different! Likewise, it does a disservice to grieving people to suggest that their grief will one day “go away.” When that doesn’t happen, they can feel like “failures at grief,” adding guilt to the misery.
Grief, like the love we feel for someone, never goes away completely. At some point, it simply stops being “the only thing” in our lives. In healthy grief, we learn ways to carry it, to incorporate it, to share it, to be wizened and deepened by it.
As personal as pain can be, healing should have a communal dimension, and the church should always be one of the places where that happens. So, as we approach a holiday season that will represent a lot of “firsts” for grieving families, here are places where you can find companionship for your grief through your church:
• On Thursday night, September 11, our friends at Thomas McAfee Funeral Homes will host their annual grief seminar with Dr. Jill A. Harrington at 6pm at Brookwood Church, 580 Brookwood Point Place, Simpsonville. I’ll be joining anyone who wants to share a meal beforehand at 4:45pm at Dino’s Family Restaurant, 775 Butler Rd., Mauldin, and then going over and sitting together. The seminar is free to the public.
• At 9:30am the next morning, Friday September 12, we’ll meet for coffee in the Fellowship Hall to debrief what we heard the night before and talk about “what helps and what doesn’t.”
• Friday, November 14, we’ll gather in the Parlor for a day-retreat to learn how faith informs grief and to share ideas about how to prepare for the holidays.
Please scan this QR code to sign up for any of these events. You may also call the church office to sign up over the phone.
In the meantime, Stephen Ministers are available for confidential companionship, counselors can be reached by referral and your ministers’ doors remain open. Quiet spaces such as the Chapel, the Remembrance Garden, and the Media Center also offer welcoming places for reading, prayer and reflection.
Let’s replace unrealistic expectations with time-honored wisdom practices that actually help us live fully with our grief, and let’s walk the valley road together!
—Kyle Matthews, Minister of Pastoral Care