Waking Up

It finally happened. The words that have gone unspoken by women who know me. Last week, a dear woman said, “You are living my worst nightmare, Pam.” She graciously offered some kind words that followed. Her courage to say the words out loud led me to come to some conclusions.

For the past three years, since my husband died, I’ve had a sense that women cautiously approach me with the nagging thought in the back of their heads: “if it can happen to her, it can happen to me, too.”  It’s the elephant in the room that’s not hard to see. The sudden loss of my husband took me to the place where I was living my worst nightmare.

In the book by Jerry Sittser, “A Grace Disguised”, he shares his painful journey following the devastating loss of his mother, wife, and daughter in an unimaginable, tragic accident. He says, “We will not be delivered from suffering but with God’s help we can be transformed by it. The apostle Paul wrote that nothing can “separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing. Not even our losses. That is the promise of true transformation, that is the power of the love of God.”

Loss takes us to the depths of what looks like it might be unsurvivable and transforms us. We go through to come up and out of the despair and see a different landscape.  The experience of loss will touch all of us at some point in our lives.  There’s no escape.  But there is hope.

In my journey, there has been a slow and gentle process of coming out of the fear, sorrow and grief into a place of hope, comfort and solace. My faith, identify and growth have ushered me into a deeper sense of God’s love for me and amplified my relationships beyond the surface.  It is possible to go through your worst nightmare and come forth to a spacious place of healing and restoration. The words of David in Psalm 31:7, 8 give a sense of the process; “because you have seen my affliction, you know the troubles of my soul and have not handed me over to the enemy.  You have set my feet in a spacious place.”

There is hope beyond the present pain and a path forward to a spacious place as we grieve.

"Grateful Yet Grieving"

FREE ebook by Pam Luschei | Click HERE To Download

Is there a GPS for Grief?

When I descended into the abyss of grief after my husband died, I grasped at anything to guide me.  My first question was, “where do I find the exit out of here?”

I didn’t find that answer but instead discovered what I could do to navigate my way through.  I wrote in five journals, read books and went to counseling.  I wanted a GPS to guide me to see where I was and where I was going. 

In the second year, I found the work of Dr. William Worden, world-known psychologist, specializing in grief counseling and therapy. Dr. Worden identifies Tasks of Grieving that are completed throughout the grieving process.  The first task is to accept the reality of the loss. For many of us, it’s sitting in the front row of our loved one’s memorial service.  The second task is to process the pain of the grief, which means feel the full range of feelings associated with your loss.  We must “feel to heal” as we allow ourselves to look, explore and express our feelings.  The third task is to adjust to the world without the deceased.  We discover another path as we forge ahead.  And the fourth task, according to Worden, is to find an enduring connection with your loved one in the midst of embarking on a different life.  We create a space to remember and honor our loved one while living in the present and going forward. 

Upon finding Dr. Worden’s model, I felt like I had found a well in the desert. The defined tasks helped me see where I was and where I needed to go.  There was no exit or entrance, but a moving in and out with the ebb and flow of grief.  I found it helpful to see there was no order or stages that required completion.  I had a guide, but not a recipe to follow.

Each of us has our own experience and journey with grief. It’s our story. There’s not a right or wrong way to move through it. We can’t fix it or shut the door on it. We can find a way through that leads to a different life than we planned.

"Grateful Yet Grieving"

FREE ebook by Pam Luschei | Click HERE To Download