Grief 2 Great Day - Christian Grief Support for Women, Questioning God in Grief, Life after Loss, Hope in Grief

SHOW NOTES In the first two years of grief, you will have more ‘bad’ days than good.  You’ll feel like things will never change, that you are once again back to square one.  It’s so hard but it’s also a normal response to losing your loved one – the one you can’t figure out how to live without. The pain is so great on some days that you don’t think you can continue because even when you have a goo...

SHOW NOTES In life before grief, you probably dealt with self-limiting thoughts that keep you overthinking things.   In grief, you’re gonna deal with self-limiting thoughts and all doubts that have ever crossed your mind.  You will struggle with those thoughts more than usual which will tempt you to find comfort quickly in unhealthy behaviors.  Let me go ahead and tell you that finding comfort in...

SHOW NOTES Has it been shocking to you that grief has been harder than you thought?  That it’s taking SO much longer than you imagined and that it seems like it will never end?  Well, the first holidays (and possibly the second) will be as shocking and make you feel the same way. In preparation for your first holidays, I’m going to share: 3 things to prepare for 3 things to help you get through an...

SHOW NOTES - This is a replay from Thanksgiving 2022   Today is Thanksgiving and it may be a day you just want over with, so giving thanks isn’t so easy.  And, when you are getting lost in your feelings, it’s hard to do the thing that will change all things.  I’m talking about being in God’s word. Today, I want you to know that you aren’t alone, that you are loved.  Just sit back and listen as I r...

SHOW NOTES This week, I’ll be answering a question that I receive a lot.  It’s actually a question I had, and it was the fear I had. Because grief was so painful and made me question everything, I was convinced that life would never be good again, that it would be painful, sad, and hopeless. Because grief is so overwhelming, it’s easy to feel this way.  And when things don’t change day after day a...

SHOW NOTES You are going through grief right now but life around you goes on as it always has.  That in itself seems wrong, but are you dealing with the same expectations from others in a different way?  As Christians we tend to take on others’ problems in an unhealthy way because we feel or were taught, we are supposed to.  But are we?    In grief, for the first time in my life, I had boundaries....

SHOW NOTES We read the Bible verse that God will make all things come together for our good. Well, how in the world is what you are going through good?  How can it ever be good?  This is where I struggled in the beginning.  I read about a Christian singer who lost her husband in a diving accident. I could so relate with the pain and confusion and then she shared how she had to trust in God and was...

SHOW NOTES What do you do when you are exhausted but can’t sleep.  Where does your mind take you? It is not uncommon to experience insomnia when going through grief.  And, when you don’t rest, it magnifies the overwhelm, the confusion, irritability and all the grief stuff. So, how do you get a decent rest in grief?  We’ll talk about some practical steps to help the symptom of not being able to sle...

SHOW NOTES How many times have you prayed for this pain to stop?  And yet the tears keep falling.  How many times have you prayed for help getting through another difficult hour or day?  And the mornings - are still overwhelming. Are your prayers being heard?  Nothing seems to change; nothing seems to be getting better – and you start to wonder- does God even care? Today we’ll talk about what ‘goi...

SHOW NOTES We’re wrapping up the cousin Jesus to Abba Father series today, but I want to take a second to remind you (and me) that our relationship with God shouldn’t be like a distant cousin – only calling when there’s family news.  We need to remember that we are daughters of the most high God – we call him Abba father. It doesn’t matter how far you’ve gotten from the Abba Father relationship –...

SHOW NOTES I can give you a list of times in my life that I felt responsible for the outcome of things.  When I was young, I felt like I had to keep the peace in the family; growing up, I felt I had to keep those I was in relationships with happy.  Or, even getting the jobs I applied for, making the money I needed to keep a roof over my head.  The thing about all those circumstances I mentioned is...

SHOW NOTES I grew up in church, I was baptized, and I called my self a Christian.  But what does 'being a Christian' mean to you? I was saved – I did begin a relationship with God at a young age, but I never grew my relationship with God. I read devotions, sometimes the Bible and I did pray though not regularly.  My Christianity was more religion than relationship and I’m not sure I recognized tha...

SHOW NOTES I grew up in church, I was baptized, and I called my self a Christian.  But what does that mean to you?  I was saved – I did begin a relationship with God at a young age, but I never grew my relationship with God. I read devotions, sometimes the Bible and I did pray though not regularly.  My Christianity was more religion than relationship and I’m not sure I recognized that until Monica...

SHOW NOTES Your journey of grief is confusing enough but if you add in certain emotions, it makes it harder to distinguish what is grief and what isn’t. Two of the emotions – which are related to each other – are guilt and regret.  If you feel at all guilty about something that you think you’ve done wrong to your loved one, it’s hard to let get of the regret.  That regret almost feels like paying...

SHOW NOTES Dependency can add to the loss and confusion you feel in grief. At 43 years of age, I had to figure out just who I was.  I could tell you that I liked Christian or country music or that my favorite color was blue, but beyond that, I had been more like a chameleon as I adapted to whatever everyone expected of me. I’ll share the flip side of such dependency too. If the relationship with y...

SHOW NOTES Last week, I shared a little more of my life before grief.  When you go through grief, a lot of your past can come to the surface whether it’s positive or negative.  My perception of God was skewed as I had religion but not strong relationship with Him.  I needed someone to lash out at, so between blaming God and myself, there was a lot of junk to deal with. In grief, I felt so broken,...

SHOW NOTES Over the last 3 weeks we talked about what rules your thoughts, your hopes, and your actions.  There are things you may be doing that will keep you stuck in your grief and stagnant in your life. If you missed any of these, it’ll be worth your time to check them out. This week, I want to share a little more of my journey before grief which probably contributed to my constant 'why' questi...

A couple weeks ago, we started talking about your mindset in terms of what rules your thoughts, your hopes and your actions.  There are things you may be doing that will keep you stuck in your grief and stagnant in your life. These are thought prisons.  The first one was living in the past versus learning from the past. The second one was the illusion of control. Today, I’ll be sharing the third t...

Last week we started talking about your mindset in terms of what rules your thoughts, your hopes and your actions.  There are things you may be doing that will keep you stuck in your grief and stagnant in your life. These are thought prisons.  The first one was living in the past versus learning from the past. Today, I’ll be sharing the second of the three thought prisons that might have ruled you...

Last week we talked about how to make your grief journey harder and this week we go a little deeper into your mindset in terms of what rules your thoughts, your hopes and your actions.  There are things you may be doing that will keep you stuck in your grief and stagnant in your life. These are thought prisons.  Today, I’ll be sharing one of the three thought prisons that might have ruled your lif...

One of the scariest things for me when I was going through grief was getting stuck.  Initially I didn’t know what to do to get through in a healthy way, so I did a lot of the wrong things.  I knew that life would never be the same, but I feared that I would never have a life again. I can tell you there are helpful and healing things you can do – a lot of which I’ve talked about in previous episode...

Over the last month or so we’ve talked about faith and feelings over faith and that can get heavy.  So, for a second week, we’re switching gears to give the emotional and spiritual parts of us a break and we’ll focus on the physical.  Now, we are spiritual beings living in a physical body, so there is a great connection. Please note the ‘turtle’ in the title…that is a big reminder that nothing we...

For the last month or so we’ve talked about faith and feelings over faith and that can get heavy if we are willing to put time and effort into reflecting on where we are currently and where we'd like to be.  Remember, we’ll never reach perfection, but the desire of getting closer to God to live by faith (instead of feelings) is always important. Today, we’ll switch gears to give the emotional and...

Last week I shared what God says faith is.  This week, I’ll share what I learned about faith in a current day example – it transformed my life forever. As Christians, we believe in a God whom we have never seen, and as long as our faith fits what we are able to comprehend and see with our eyes, we consider ourselves faith filled. Should faith be so small as to fit in our back pockets, to be pulled...

For the last four weeks we’ve talked about faith and feelings.  My assumption has been that we are all on the same page about what faith in God even means and what it looks like in daily life. You have already shown great faith by believing in God. However, in grief that belief can turn to questioning and anger. When I experienced those things, it made me think that I had no faith and that I was d...