Two ten-year old girls, best friends since nursery school are separated when one family moves to Colorado.
A 50 year old surgeon develops back pain and has to step back from the kind of surgeries he enjoyed.
A woman was anticipating an exciting promotion in her company but the organization decided to go in a different direction.
These stories showed up on my friends’ Facebook pages this week.
Before Facebook offered the “care” emoji, sometimes it was hard to know how to respond. Many of my friends highlight on their social media pages the good things that happen in life – adorable children, silly puppies, beautiful scenery, inspiring quotes, fabulous food, and the like. With those kinds of stories as I quickly scroll through, I can easily tap “like,” or even “love.”
The youngest child in a family got his first full time job but it’s in Montana. The house feels empty.
Other stories give me pause. They are stories of vulnerability. They are stories of loss.
Every once in awhile I re-read a book I heard about in pastoral chaplaincy training called, All Our Losses, All Our Griefs. Authors Ken Mitchell and Herb Anderson write about the fact that grief is a lifelong human experience.
Often we give ourselves permission to grieve only when we are affected by the so-called “big” losses – death, illness, divorce, etc. But loss is a recurrent theme in the human experience. All change whether good or bad is a loss (retirement, a new school, needing to remember to wear a mask to the grocery store). The ability to name and express that sometimes what we are feeling is “grief” in the midst of loss is a gift.
From a faith perspective, the important question is not how to avoid suffering (a futile goal), but how to recognize that God suffers with us.
I invite you to join me in a conversation about “Grief and Loss” for six weeks on Monday evenings at 7pm or Wednesday afternoons at 1pm beginning October 19/21.
Zoom links:
Mondays, 7pm beginning October 19
https://zoom.us/j/95121156208?pwd=dVUvOHFia0FibHBLQmI1K0RjUEZ2Zz09
Wednesdays, 1pm beginning October 21
https://zoom.us/j/94607606499?pwd=WDB3OStXbXZiTHBBL3ZqL2prc2FkQT09
In Christ,
Pastor Jen