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278: Is There a Difference Between Thankful and Grateful?

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278: Is There a Difference Between Thankful and Grateful?
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This was an unplanned episode, but Laura wanted to share some things before the week was over.

With this being the week of Thanksgiving (here in the US) Laura started wondering if there is a difference between being thankful and being grateful. After listening to what she has to share, Laura would love to hear your thoughts. You can write them in the comment section under the podcast audio bar here, which is directly on the GPS Hope website.

Links Mentioned in this episode:

“Black Friday” special: Click here to sponsor an episode in memory of your child for a $25 donation (instead of $50) through Sunday night, Dec. 1.

Click here for more info on Hope for the Future: An Advent Book for Bereaved Parents.

Find out more about Laura’s songs, and listen to samples of them here.

 

Birthdays:

Brendan Weidner was born on November 28 and is forever 14.

If you would like your child mentioned on the podcast the week of his or her birthday, click here to fill out the short form with the needed information.

The special song written for our children’s birthdays I Remember Well can be heard here.

Remember to Hold On Pain Eases; there is HOPE!

www.gpshope.org

 

To have Laura come and minister at your event, contact us at office@gpshope.org.

Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) is here to walk with parents through the darkness of child-loss, guiding them to a place of hope, light and purpose.

It is a safe place for anyone who has lost a child from this earth. There is no shame or judgment in where you are in this journey, including if you are struggling in your relationship with God or your faith has been completely shattered.

 

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Six Pitfalls of Grief

In today’s blog, I want to share something that is based on what a pareavor, Libby Farrell, wrote about the pitfalls of grief.

We will face pitfalls on this unwanted grief journey after the death of our child. The valley of the shadow of grief is real and it is big. There can be many different feelings and emotions while on this unwanted journey.

  1. Fear

Fear can feel overwhelming.

    • We fear for our children who are still here with us.
    • We fear “moving on.”
    • We fear people will forget our child.
    • We fear that there is a timeline for grief, and we are not doing it right.
    • We have a fear of laughing and living life in a way that feels good again.

We can also fear that our child might not be in heaven, but we don’t have all the information to know that. What we DO know is that it is not God’s will that any perish. We can trust that God did everything possible to offer our child the gift of salvation, including that moment they crossed over from this world to the next. Your child probably realized how deeply they are loved by Him and said yes.

So, we can choose to live in fear that our child might not be in heaven, or we can choose to live in faith, trust and peace, that our child is with Him. I highly recommend choosing faith and peace, because God is right, fear brings torment.

If you struggle with these fears or others, cry out to God. Scream at Him, tell Him your true fears; let it all out. Then ask Him to help you hand over those fears to Him, because God is big enough to carry them for us and wants to exchange that fear for peace.

Fear is such a big thing for us that I did an entire podcast series with individual episodes talking about the different fears. They are episodes 12-18, Click here for episode twelve, and you can go from there to listen to the ones that affect you.

  1. Depression & Anxiety

This is not something to be ashamed of. It is okay to not be okay. It does not mean you aren’t a good enough Christian. It is okay, and does not show weakness, to need and seek professional guidance and help.

If your stomach is having problems, or your knee keeps buckling, or your thyroid isn’t functioning properly, you don’t have a problem with having someone look at it and help you deal with it. The brain is no different. Please get help if you need it, and don’t be ashamed or feel guilty.

  1. Longings and triggers

A longing is a strong, persistent desire or craving, an aching, especially for something distant or unattainable.

We long for our child who has left this earth. We long to hear their laugh, be able to give them a hug, or to hear them say, “I love you.” However, we can be thankful that this is not “unattainable,” but only “distant,” as we will see them again someday in a place where there are no more tears, no more pain, and no more separation.

You will have waves of grief that will take you under. When that happens, allow yourself some alone time to reflect on the happy times spent together. Write down what made you love and appreciate that person and the positive moments spent together. Reflect on the good times. Read them out loud.

You can also read Psalms and Lamentations because so much of it is crying out to God from a place of pain and suffering, which we can relate to.

  1. Regret

We will all have times of regret that can overwhelm us. At some point we have to let them go, or we will forever be brought to our knees from the bullying pain these thoughts bring. What is done is done.

Your child does not have any regrets. Our children are living their best life ever, and they are not dwelling on what we should have done differently.

So next time those regrets get stuck in your head, journal what you think their eternal home is like. Get caught up in imagining what heaven truly looks like. Listen to songs and read books about heaven and thank Him for the new life that He created for our loved one.

When you join your child, those regrets will be totally wiped away forever. Why wait until then? Release yourself from them right now.

  1. Loneliness and Isolation

Be prepared for your friendships to change. Your circle of friends will start to look different. Many of those you thought would be there for you just aren’t, for various reasons.

Just being around other people isn’t what we are longing for, though. It is being around people who care, and who will allow us to be whoever we need to be, at any given moment, in our grieving.

This is why pareavors gravitate to each other. So reach out to grief support groups, reach out to other parents who are walking the same unwanted journey.

You will have times when you will want to Isolate, and that is ok. Sometimes you need this. But it can also make things worse. Put yourself on a two-day rule. No isolating past two days, because then it becomes unhealthy. If you can’t get past it on the 3rd day, you need to reach out to someone who won’t try to fix you but just be with you (like a friend or family member) or someone who can help pull you out of that dangerous place (like a pastor or counselor).

  1. Thinking you cannot go on without your child here with you

You will feel like you can’t go on living another day, but you can. You may feel like you cannot go on for another minute, but you can. You may not like hearing this, but God still has a purpose for your life. Seek God’s heart and pray about what He has for you to do that will help others in some way. You may even find it is doing something in your child’s honor and memory.

When you feel like you can’t live another day, change your surroundings, go for a drive, be in church or with a friend, pastor or therapist who can help walk you through. Go outside and scream to God, pray and truly lay it all out to Him.

God can help you through all these things that can be pitfalls. We cannot get out of them on our own, nor should we try. This is when we need to fall into the arms of God and let Him carry us.

This was taken from the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast, episode 200: Six Pitfalls of Grief. Click here to listen to the audio directly on the GPS Hope website, or look for the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast on your favorite listening app.

Not only is God with you, there is a community here at Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) that is with you. If you would like to connect with us, the best way to do so is to sign up below and start receiving the Weekly Word of Hope emails, sent out each Wednesday.

Laura’s newest book, Reflections of Hope: Daily Readings for Bereaved Parents will be available in a few weeks. To find out more, click here. You can also sign up to be one of the first ones to know when the book is available, along with a few bonus items you can receive if you order it right away.

 

Expressions of Hope is provided by Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope). The founders, Dave and Laura Diehl, travel full time in their Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) to be more easily available for speaking and ministry requests, and bringing intimate weekend retreats to bereaved parents. Laura is also a singer/songwriter and the author of multiple award-winning books.

If you would like more information about bringing Dave and Laura to you for an event, please send an email to office@gpshope.org.

If you are interested in bringing GPS Hope to your area for a weekend retreat click here.

 

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Our Grief is a Full-Time Job!

It can be exhausting trying to explain to family and friends why we don’t want to (or can’t) celebrate holidays and special events like we have in the past, especially when they just don’t get it. Friends and family who mean well, can even insist that joining in the celebrations and festivities is just what we need. They tell us it is the best thing we can do to “get back to normal.”

Insert loud “wrong answer” buzzer-sound right about now!

Here is something that might help to explain our grief, if not to others, at least to yourself.

For those first few months up to two or three years, grieving the death of our child is like having a full-time job with overtime! It consumes us. It takes everything we have, whether we want it to or not. It drains us, leaving us to feel like there is just no way we can go on.

Eventually, our grief becomes more like a full-time job, thankfully without all the constant overtime. It usually sneaks up on us around three to five years into our grief, and we don’t even realize it at first.

Grieving the death of our child is still the greatest part of our life. It still drains us and exhausts us, but now we have times of reprieve. We can go out and do something without feeling like we are on the verge of falling apart. We can join certain activities or family events (even if we aren’t ready to stay the whole time) and have some smiles and laughs without feeling guilty. We can watch a movie and actually enjoy it, instead of just staring at the screen, oblivious to what we are watching.

We clock back in to our full-time job of grieving afterwards, but it isn’t all-consuming anymore, although we can still slip into overtime for a few days (even weeks) here and there.

Then, after several years of really hard work, we find ourselves able to go down to part-time grief. However, we are always “on call” because our grief is like an undercurrent, ready to surface in a split second. Sometimes we know there is something coming that will be a trigger, and other times we get slapped with it out of the blue with no warning, in a place we least expect it.

When that happens, we clock back in to increase our grief work time. Sometimes we are clocked in for a few minutes or hours. Sometimes it is for a day or two. And there are occasional times, when we need to go back to full-time, such as when our child should be graduating with their classmates, or a wedding happens that our child would have been in.

And yes, there will still be rare times when we go back to overtime, like the death of another close family member that triggers our deep grief. Eight years after my daughter, Becca, died, I found myself sobbing and wailing at my dad’s casket. I didn’t even do that at Becca’s casket, but when I saw the boutonniere from her wedding pinned to his suit, I just totally lost it. I even knew it was going to be there, but it affected me so much more deeply than I anticipated. I was out-of-sorts for a few weeks, having a hard time focusing and functioning. (Then seven weeks later my mother-in-law, whom I loved dearly, passed away in her sleep, which didn’t help at all!)

I am so glad to be back to part-time right now. But I know there will continue to be times when it goes back to fulltime for a while, and unfortunately, also overtime. But thankfully, that is very rare.

Where are you right now? Are you on overtime, fulltime, or part time grief? It’s all hard work, but the overtime is just outright brutal! If that’s where you are, what can you do to give yourself a short break now and then?

We can’t stop the overtime until that work project is complete, but we can and need to take as many breaks as possible, no matter how short they are. The Holy Spirit knows exactly what you need and when you need it. If you feel a prompting to do something that doesn’t make a lot of sense (obviously nothing harmful), then follow through on those promptings. You just never know how it will lift your load just a bit.

 

Do you struggle with self-care? We have put together a list of 30 simple things you can do, to take care of yourself and bring yourself comfort. Let us know below where to send it. (You will also begin to receive our Weekly Word of Hope, which you can unsubscribe from at any time.)

 

Expressions of Hope is provided by Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope). The founders, Dave and Laura Diehl, travel full time in their Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) to be more easily available for speaking and ministry requests, and bringing intimate weekend retreats to bereaved parents. Laura is also a singer/songwriter and the author of multiple award-winning books.

If you would like more information about bringing Dave and Laura to you for an event, please send an email to office@gpshope.org.

If you are interested in bringing GPS Hope to your area for a weekend retreat click here.

 

 

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What I Learned in Hindsight that Might Help You

~ by BJ Jensen

Hindsight is a good teacher.  If I had to relive those first special dates over again since Jay died in 1995 (I pray I will not ever have to), I would approach them differently, utilizing some of the following bits of wisdom gleaned over time:

I would not expect everyone to remember Jay’s birth date or death date like I do.

I see now how I set myself up for feeling more disappointment or failure.  Those dates cannot possible mean as much to other people as they do to his own mother.  It is not fair on my part to expect that.

I would voice my thoughts or concerns that jay’s birthday or “birth into heaven” date was coming up and that I was feeling fragile or sad or lonely.

It has not been fair of me to want people to “read my mind” and guess why I’m blue.  Personally, I don’t know any mind readers, and don’t think I will ever know any.  It would have been more appropriate for me to tell those I wanted to share my heart with.  I would have saved me more grief when they didn’t remember.

I would have planned special things for those special days instead of thinking that I should sit at home by myself and cry.

A walk on Jay’s favorite beach at sunset with a friend, or a picnic at Jay’s favorite park with some of his friends would have helped me remember some of the good times instead of focusing on the bad.

I would have done something nice for someone who was feeling lonely or sad or didn’t have a friend – a trip out to lunch or to a movie.

I would have focused more on the good memories instead of the hurtful ones. 

When I focused on what I didn’t have, it produced unhappiness and discontent.  When I focused on what I did have, it produced gratitude.

I would have realized it was okay for me to cry and it was okay to desire to have Jay back, even though it held me captive in selfishness. 

It was okay – but only for a time.  I then had to make a truly hard decision to focus on helping others less fortunate.  The more time I spent focused inwardly on myself and the loss of our son, the more I seemed to spiral downward into the pit of self-pity and despair.  I had already spent too much time there and hated the darkness.  I now know I would have helped myself recover sooner and with less stress if I had spent more time focused outwardly.

I would have joined a support group sooner.

I would not have isolated myself from the very ones who wanted to help me.  My family of origin had taught me to segregate myself from others when I was sad.  However, I now believe we are made for community and for helping each other through the tough times.

We try to honor our son’s life by doing the best we can with the rest of our lives. We sometimes ask ourselves the question, “Would our choices and decisions in our lives today make Jay proud of us?”

We treasure memories of Jay and allow ourselves to reminisce, get nostalgic, and be thankful for the time we had with him, even though it wasn’t long enough. Whatever time we had with our departed child would never have been long enough.

Surviving special dates the first few years after the death of your child may seem like an impossible task. In some ways it’s like climbing a steep mountain or navigating on a churning ocean. But it can be done. So many others have had to climb that mountain or traverse those treacherous waters and are stronger for having made it to the far shore. We want to encourage you and give you hope that it can be done. That small tender shoot of hope will grow when nurtured and fertilized.

 

This was taken by permission from the book Finding Hope After the Devastating Loss of Beloved Children by Dr. Doug and BJ Jensen. Click here to find it on Amazon. (This is an affiliate link. GPS Hope will get a small percentage of your purchase by using it.)

 

Doug and BJ Jensen, are International Speakers, award-winning Dramatists, Signing Artists, Song Writers, Drama Writers, and Authors of 16 books. Dr. Jensen earned his PhD in Biblical Studies in the area of Biblical Counseling.  BJ is the Director of the world traveling LOVE IN MOTION Signing Choir and is a writer of 8 stories found in seven of the CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL books. You can contact them at Jensen2@san.rr.com or on their Facebook page: Bj Jensen San Diego.

We would like to send you a PDF of Thirty Ways to Bring Ourselves Comfort and Take Care of Ourselves. Please let us know below where to send it. (You will also join over 1000 other parents who receive a Weekly Word of Hope.)

Expressions of Hope is provided by Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope). The founders, Dave and Laura Diehl, travel full time in their Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) to be more easily available for speaking and ministry requests, and bringing intimate weekend retreats to bereaved parents. Laura is also a singer/songwriter and the author of multiple award-winning books.

If you would like more information about bringing Dave and Laura to you for an event, please send an email to office@gpshope.org.

If you are interested in bringing GPS Hope to your area for a weekend retreat click here.

 

 

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Finding the Real Us

Growing up, one of my favorite stories was The Velveteen Rabbit. In fact, I named one of my own stuffed bunnies Velveteen, and would often sleep with it at night. (I memorized a list of all my stuffed animals, and gave each one a turn sleeping with me, cuddled in my arms, so none of them would feel left out. I can still run through that list in my head, almost fifty years later. I will spare sharing with you the names of my 13 cuddle-mates…)

Just a few years ago, I found a beautiful condensed “read-aloud” version of the book, so I purchased it to be able to share it with my grandkids. When we moved into the Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) I had to go through a life-time collection of two shelves of children’s books, deciding which ones to get rid of and which ones to keep. Only eight of those books found a place in our house on wheels, and that copy of The Velveteen Rabbit is one of them.

In case you aren’t familiar with the story, this little “fat and bunchy” stuffed bunny with spotted brown and white velveteen fur and pink sateen ears, becomes a boy’s favorite toy, which he talks to, plays with, and of course cuddles with each night. The bunny thinks he is real, because the boy tells the nanny his beloved bunny is real when she thinks he is making too much fuss over a toy. Eventually, the boy becomes sick with scarlet fever, and the well-worn and much-loved bunny is taken with the bedding to be burned. A real tear trickles down the face of the bunny, which immediately grows a flower with a fairy in it. Because the bunny was so loved and was real to the boy, she turns the velveteen Rabbit into a real live bunny, to live with the others he met earlier who made fun of him for not being real.

Looking back, I had no idea what the meaning of that story would have to me, after the death of our oldest daughter, Becca.

Let me share an exchange in the nursery between the wise old Skin Horse and the Rabbit.

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day…

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you… It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time… Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” (The Velveteen Rabbit by Marjorie Williams)

There are several similarities in this story, to my journey of being a pareavor  (a parent who has been bereaved of my child).

• It reminds me that working through our grief is a process; a journey. And it definitely doesn’t happen all at once. It takes a long time… years, as a matter-of-fact.

• “He hasn’t got any hind legs! He doesn’t smell right!” the wild rabbit exclaimed, jumping backwards. “He isn’t a rabbit at all! He isn’t real!” This is the reaction the live rabbits had one day when Rabbit was on the ground while his boy played. I don’t know about you, but many of us feel like the people around us just don’t get it. They don’t validate our loss, because we are so different than they are. They hop away and leave us, not understanding why we are the way we are.

• It is a story of going from being ugly to being real; from being who I was, thinking I was “real,” to being who I am now, on the other side of the suffocating darkness after Becca’s death. As I came out of the darkness and back into a place of hope and light, I began to see myself differently and I began to see others differently, along with a depth I didn’t have before. And that is a good thing.

• The Velveteen Rabbit is also a story of hope. He went from a place of devastation and being thrown away as useless to becoming real. I certainly felt devastated and totally useless. I felt like my soul died when my daughter died. But I didn’t stay that way. And you won’t either.

In order to become “real,” like the velveteen Rabbit, we have been taken through a very ugly place. And just like he was taken to a community of other bunnies, we are a community. We are a bunch of broken wounded people, doing life together. We are now traveling with each other on this journey, where we can learn how to become our best self and to become more real than ever before, within the pain and deep earthly loss of our children, not in spite of their death, but because of their life.

The book ends with the boy playing outside the following spring, seeing a rabbit that looks very much like his stuffed bunny that was destroyed.

But he never knew that it really was his own Bunny, come back to look at the child who had first helped him to be Real.

Our children gave us a great gift. The gift to become truly real. I know so many parents who are much further on this journey than I am, who have said they would not want to go back to being the person they were before their child died.

Why would they say that?

Because our child changed us. Both their life and their death.

We tend to look at how dark our life became after their departure, but there are also ways we have grown and are growing (or will grow), because of our brokenness. For me, I tend to not fret over the smaller things as much as I used to. I am much more aware of the present moment, knowing that is really all I have. My compassion for those who are hurting is way more than it ever used to be.

And because Becca had life, there are things she did that taught me something or showed me the way to being a better person, such as watching how she had a way of accepting everyone (whether she agreed with them in life choices and opinions or not) and how she was able to bring so much laughter while she was deathly ill her last 18 months. And watching Becca live life with only one leg and not letting it limit her, gives me motivation to push through my own difficulties instead of giving in to the obstacles that come my way.

How about you? Some of you may not have gotten to this point yet, because your child’s departure is still too fresh and your grief is still very dark and deep, but is there something you like better about yourself now since your child died? Is it easier to let go of toxic relationships? Are you more aware of what is really important in your life now? Are you now easily able to say “no” when people ask you to do something, when before you always said “yes?” Do you no longer feel guilty about putting your own needs first?

Here is another thought. We often talk about how we are forever changed because our child died, but I want to ask: How are you different now because your child LIVED? What are the new lenses your child’s life gave you, helping you to see the world with a different view than you had before?

As the wise old Skin Horse said: Once you become real, you can never become ugly again.

I would love to have you answer in the comments below this blog. What have you gained through your child’s death? What did your child’s life teach you?

We would like to send you the MP3 download From Pain to Purpose. This is a message Laura Diehl has given at several churches, sharing how God has a plan to take the deepest pain of the loss of your child, and restore your life to one of meaning and purpose once again, if we allow Him to.

 

Expressions of Hope is written by author, speaker and singer Laura Diehl. She and her husband, Dave, are the founders of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope). Dave and Laura travel full time in their Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) to be more easily available for speaking and ministry requests, including being invited to hold one-day GPS Hope & Healing conferences.

Laura is a national keynote speaker and has also been a workshop speaker for events such as The Compassionate Friends and Bereaved Parents USA national conferences, along with being a guest on radio shows, podcasts and other media channels such as webinars with Open to Hope.

If you would like more information about Laura as a speaker for your next event or want more information on hosting a GPS Hope & Healing conference, click here.

 

GPS Hope exists to walk with grieving parents through the suffocating darkness of child-loss, guiding them to a place of hope, light and purpose.
 We also support families, friends and coworkers who want to know how to support these parents both short and long-term.

 

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