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

How and when is it time to let go of your loved one’s stuff?  And, what is the best way to do it?   There are many opinions on this one from never letting go to let everything go to ‘you have to do it right away.’    Let this serve as a reminder that this grief is yours – it is your journey and making the decision as to what and when is something you get to decide, no one else.    In today’s episo...

Some days, you will have nothing left and jumping in the bed seems like the solution – some days, it is the solution but today we’re going to talk about how to know you truly have nothing left and what you can do about it.   Grief steals our energy so most days you will feel exhausted, and, in the beginning, rest is so important.  But over time, don’t allow yourself to live in the exhaustion of ye...

The reason the podcast is called grief to great day is because even though getting from the depths of grief to having a great day isn’t quick or easy or anything like you thought, it is POSSIBLE.   And as you walk through grief and then become ready to build another life and discover new purpose, how do go about figuring out what that looks like?  How do you put your hands to the work you are crea...

How many times do we get stuck (or thrown in the pit) when we are grieving?  The number for me was too many to keep up with.  Sometimes being stuck was my excuse to do nothing and then getting out of it was hard.  The times I took action, the times I pushed beyond my emotions, they were the times I was less stuck, and the pit was less deep.    There will be times, that you don’t care about healing...

When you have a friend or family member who is grieving, it’s not always easy to know how to best help them through the worst moments of their life.  However, when you are also grieving the same loss, how do you help them while honoring the process you too are going through?   You hurt because of the loss but then you are hurting because someone you love hurts.  Sometimes you put your grief on the...

The reason the podcast is called grief to great day is because even though getting from the depths of grief to having a great day isn’t quick or easy or anything like you thought, it is POSSIBLE.    And as you walk through grief and then become ready to build another life and discover new purpose, how do go about figuring out what that looks like?  How do you put your hands to the work you are cre...

The future ahead of you looks like a mountain that you are too weary to climb.  The past is where your memories are, it’s where your loved one is and as much as you’d like to go back there, it is not possible.   This major change in your life is not what you wanted, and you have no idea what the future will hold.  It becomes overwhelming and the fear starts to set in about what you need to do.   ...

You wake up and it’s like Groundhog Day.  I hated that movie.  The reality of loss sets in again and again.  The first weeks and months and yes, even in the first year, the daily grind of grief is where the battles are fought.   Yes, day by day by day by day by painful day by sad day by hard day by day, by tear-filled, by angry by exhausted day.  That was a little annoying, huh?  That’s the daily...

The reason the podcast is called grief to great day is because even though getting from the depths of grief to having a great day isn’t quick or easy or anything like you thought, it is POSSIBLE.    Let me say it again – you can get from where you are right now (hardly able to breathe, or finally laughing without guilt) to this point – the place where you feel less sad, where some color has return...

Oh, to be able to move forward – to not hurt so bad you can’t function, to not have the tears that won’t stop coming….to feel normal again would be soo great.   It’s the goal, the hope, it’s the thing you pray for and it’s starting to happen, but wait, does moving forward mean you forget your loved one?   If it does, then you’re not sure you want to move forward!!  Not only is the idea of forgetti...

We’ve all have had hopes and dreams that ‘didn’t work out’ or even ones that we ourselves didn’t take steps to accomplish.  But, when you lose someone, you love, someone you had plans with or someone you had a long history and family with – well, that’s a whole different loss of dreams.    The future you always saw, the steady picture of tomorrow with your loved one is no longer a possibility and...

Grief is hard enough, but if your relationship was ‘less than’ a good relationship it can add confusion to an already confusing time.  When you lose someone, you had a tough, tortured or tragic relationship with, you must decide not to allow the troubles of the past define your future.  Not an easy task. When you are ready to rebuild your life, you do not want to build it on the faulty foundation...

A little surprise for this episode as it’s the introduction to Purpose After Loss episodes coming in September.   In our regular grief 2 great day episodes we talk about the pain, the pit and progress through the hardest season of your life. This second episode will focus on your Purpose After Loss – the rebuilding of your future.    Do you think it’s too soon for you to be here…I say, no!  Becaus...

Why do bad things happen to good people?  You’ve heard this question before, you may have even asked it yourself when hearing of other’s struggles.  But now, in your life and with your loss the question is so much more personal.  Why would a loving God allow your loved one to die?  Why would He allow you to have to experience such pain and loss?   Faith is the thing that pleases God and faith seem...

Hey Framily! I’m Stef and this is Grief 2 Great Day.  Thank you for being here for a different kind of episode.  If this is your first time listening, this is not the norm, so please come back.  😊 I just wanted to share a few things on my heart - basically, an update on Grief 2 Great Day including the workshop being available (yay!) a second podcast episode coming prayers for Veleria – our guest...

There is an incredible difference between hopeless and hopeful.  Having hope will get you through the hardest moments of your life, but how do you have hope in the hardest moments of your life?  You can’t ‘will’ yourself to have hope when you feel despair, so how do you ‘get’ hope when everything looks hopeless?  Today we’ll talk about some tangible actions to take to build your hope and create a...

You’re familiar with the stages of grief – you know the Acceptance stage, but what does that even mean?  Because it’s the last stage of grief, it seems to be the place everyone wants (like a finish line) to get to and be rid of this painful grief.  But is that what acceptance means?  In today’s episode, I’ll share what ‘acceptance’ means to a Christian, how to know if you are there and how to get...

You want real healing, you want to see the world in color again, to walk outside and not feel like the weight of the world is sitting on top of your shoulders…you want all that but then that desire is confronted by guilt in the idea of moving on.  After all, how can you even think about enjoying a life if your loved one has died?  How can you enjoy life now if they won’t be a part of it?   The wor...

We are given 3-7 days of bereavement leave and, in the US, it is not required to be paid leave.  And, after the first month, most of the extra help and support is dwindling because people get back to their lives with the expectations that you are as well. The problem is that you don’t have your life to get back to. In this episode, I’ll share how to resist the secondhand stress of society and hard...

When your loved one died, you lived through some of the worse moments of your life, you did ‘all the things’ you had to do including what I call the ‘business of death’ such as the funeral or service, the legal stuff and decision-making on some of your loved one’s personal items.     You didn’t know it could get worse and then a couple to six months down the road, it gets worse.  The pain, the con...

Are you a yes person?   Do you overschedule your life because others need your help?  God uses us to help others, He gives us opportunities to minister to others, but that is different than not being able to say no.  If you feel frazzled more than peaceful or exhausted in the work of helping rather than energized, this may be an area to be addressed in your life.  During grief, you don’t have the...

The beginning of grief – aka when the world flip on you.  You’ve had to see your loved one’s name in the obituary and probably were the one who wrote it.  That’s surreal.  You’ve dreaded the funeral not knowing how you would make it through. You’ve smiled kindly (and authentically) at all the people who wanted to show their love and support as they walked through the line.  All of that is hard to...

The beginning of grief – aka when the world flips on you.  You’ve had to see your loved one’s name in the obituary and probably were the one who wrote it.  That’s surreal.  You’ve dreaded the funeral not knowing how you would make it through. You’ve smiled kindly (and authentically) at all the people who wanted to show their love and support as they walked through the line.  All of that is hard to...

How can there be any tears left?  You’ve already cried a million of them.  During grief you will cry more than you ever have, and it’ll shock you because you didn’t know it was possible to cry what feels like an ocean of tears.   Stopping the tears is not the goal right now and, in the beginning, you probably couldn’t stop them if you tried.  But how do deal with them daily?  How do you go in publ...

GUEST INTERVIEW When you go through grief everything seems upside down and trying to make sense of the feelings of grief is no easy task.  On today’s episode, Veleria Holloway, Chaplain at an Inpatient Hospice House and Christian Counselor shares so much wisdom!  She wants to make sure that you: Feel what you feel without apology Don’t put yourself on a timeline for healing Seek connection & suppo...