Grief

Carolyn Begley Daley

Description

Listen and learn from your Teacher, grief. Don't let grief steal your joy. Cast off the cloak of sorrow and pain and put on the joy in the cross and Christ's resurrection. Learn of God's great love for you in your joys and in your sorrows.

Grief has been my teacher for many years of its sorrows and joys, expounding on the way of love which leads us to the cross and God’s great love for us. I wonder what it is all about-this grief-these tears? If grief is my teacher, what do I need to learn? Grief is a journey of love that each of us has to walk alone. My tears drip, they drop, they flow and they contain my healing as I walk along my pilgrimage of grief that leads me to the joy of the love of God.

This book has won:

Literary Titan: Silver Award

New England Book Festival: Honorable Mention

Sujets

• Christian Living
• Personal Growth
• Philosophie et théologie
• Teacher
• Depression
• Religion
• Grief
• Witness

Informations

• Publié par: WestBow Press
• Date de parution: 21 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781664271791
• Langue: English

Extrait

GRIEF
 
THE BEACON OF LOVE
 
 
 
 
 
 
CAROLYN BEGLEY DALEY
 
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2022 Carolyn Begley Daley.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.
 
WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
844-714-3454
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7178-4 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7179-1 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022912507
 
 
WestBow Press rev. date: 08/26/2022
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Preface
Note 1
Note 2
Note 3
Note 4
Note 5
Note 6
Note 7
Note 8
Note 9
Note 10
Note 11
Note 12
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am most grateful to all my family members: my husband, Gil; my children, Cindy, Gil, and Bryan; daughters-in-law Stephanie and Shari Beth; son-in-law Alex; and grandchildren, Catherine, Caroline, Alexandra, Sophie, Eli Mae, Amelia, and Lane, as well as many friends who have encouraged me and offered suggestions in the writing of this book.
I am grateful to those cherished souls who have passed on but taught me many lessons on the essence of love. I am grateful for all the love and care that has been extended to me in my life. Be grateful for love when it comes to you, and receive it, for it is a blessing from the Lord. I cherish all my moments with my loved ones, and I thank God for them.
He is the God of all comfort.
Thank you to WestBow Publishing for publishing this book.
Grief has beaconed me to the love of God.
PREFACE
Everyone experiences grief sometime in their life. The grief experience is unique to each individual and is based on their personality and their attachment-detachment styles of coping with tragedy. I wish I had handled my grief in better fashion. Grief was not even clearly defined as such in my case. I have lost many friends and relatives, including grandparents, parents, a brother, aunts, uncles, and cousins. My hope is that you can benefit from my shared experiences and in doing so will lessen your burden of losses and experience new joy in the found great love of God for you. God stands with you and is an ever-present source of comfort and strength for your uncharted journey through grief.
The quoted Bible verses are from the King James Version. The word quoted as charity means love in current usage of the English language.
Many blessings to you as we traverse together the joys and sorrows of grief.
NOTE 1
S ymptoms of grief may be crying, having no appetite, feeling regret over not communicating enough with our lost loved ones, being very emotional, experiencing declining health, feeling stressed, sleeping poorly, or being angry with God. Grief may include being mildly depressed, feeling sad at times, or chronically feeling sadness. Emotions may be mild depression, mild anxiety, and mild anger at God. There may be some withdrawal from life or crying spells after losing loved ones. We long to see our loved ones again. We may begin to fear death, and this fear could lead to anxiety. A coping mechanism may include the consolation that our loved ones are in heaven. We can reunite with them one day, but presently we have our good memories of them.
How do we sustain ourselves after a loss? We have lost a part of ourselves from our past, our present, and our future. We have to begin to search for a new normal without our loved ones.
We realize how much our loved ones meant to us and begin to praise God for the blessings of those people and their direct interactions in our lives.
I wonder what it is all about—this grief and these tears. Is it from loving and letting go of our loved ones? They came as a gift from God, and when they pass on, we release our loved ones back to Him. They are in His love and care for always. Does our love for them have to end when they are gone from us? Oh no. Love remains for them in our hearts forever. Our blessed hope is in Christ Jesus, our Savior, that we will one day join our loved ones for all eternity. All our days are numbered and ordered for us by the Lord God Almighty. We must proceed with our lives and do the work we have been given to do, for we are marching onward to glory forever with our heavenly Father.
I fear the silence of my lost loved one, but my memories suffice for now. What about tomorrow and the days to come? Will my tears fill the silence, the awful void? My tears drip, they drop, and they flow, and they contain my healing as I walk along my pilgrimage of grief that leads me to the joy of the love of God. My loved ones just preceded me to meet God in heaven. My turn will come, and all my loved ones will be reunited once more. The reunion will be one of deepened love, for at the end of the rainbow is the love of God for you, for me, and for everyone. Let us move forward to that blissful day while we now gladly do our work on this earth that the Lord has called us to do. He has planned our days; let us do our work joyfully as we are obedient to His calling on our lives.
Let us always extend hospitality to strangers for we know not what grief they bear. We are all united in the grief experience for it is universally felt by all at some time in our lives. Our grief can lead us to Christ. May our common grief be our introit into leading others to Christ. When we are saved, we are born again in Christ. May God find us marching onward in our work for Him to help bring His kingdom on earth. Point yourself ahead toward hope. May you live in that blessed hope and in the love of Christ that continually fills you with joy. Abide in the peace of Jesus, and rest in His love. There is no darkness in Jesus because He is the light of the world.
What are you learning from your grief? Do you know that grief is natural after a loss? Possible coping skills may include expressing your feelings to others, praying, reading the Bible, and enjoying time with your friends and family. We must learn from our grief because grief does not get easier each time we experience it. A new loss brings up grief from past losses. Whenever you lose someone, you can expect grief to raise its ugly head, but you can become less fearful of grief because you have learned how to process your feelings.
You can have consolation in the Bible and in the knowledge that you will be reunited with your loved ones in heaven. There can be grief from a job loss or a loss of any kind. The grief reaction may vary within the same person, and it varies by the strength of attachment to the person or thing that was lost. During each loss, we can learn how to console ourselves. Our grief won’t last forever. It will get better.
Don’t be ashamed of your feelings because grief is a natural part of life. God gave us the grief reaction to help us cope with loss. Our tears of sadness are normal. Our gains and losses appear as a part of God’s design. Their function is to remind us that we are but mortal and God is in control of His universe. Our time here on earth is limited. There is death because of the original sin of Adam and Eve. We must remember that God—not individuals who come and go in our lives—is central in our lives. We can experience grief with others and share in their grief. We can comfort others as we have been comforted. It’s good to talk about our grief. It is important to learn to process our grief adequately in our own individual ways. The grief reaction may vary depending on specific situations and attachment values. It can vary from a small grief response to an overwhelming one or a complicated grief response that lasts for many years and may require therapy. Loss can be hard to deal with. When we lose someone or something that we cherish and value, we grieve over the loss. We must learn to let go of that person and our relationship with that person who was very dear to us. We are left with the memories we had of that person. We wish we had more time with our loved ones, and if there were problems between our loved ones and us, we wish we had made amends. Questions without answers come into our minds. We play what-if scenarios. The truth is we have what we have; there are no tomorrows to live out with our lost loved ones on this earth. What we can do is to begin the process of forgiving their wrongs to us and our wrongs to them. That begins with a thoughtful prayer. This must be done in our own way to bring peace in our hearts. We are commanded to forgive others, or we will not be forgiven by God for our sins. Repent and pray for forgiveness, and then learn to forgive yourself for your lack of wisdom. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you