Ep. 120 | Navigating Grief with Special Guest Dale Tompkins

This month, we're diving into part two of our sermon series "Scars on the Soul" looking at the topics of grief, loneliness and estrangement; and we're doing something a little different on the Let's Talk About That podcast. Each week, we'll be inviting a local professional to join in on our Sunday sermon series conversation to offer some tangible advice and tools for navigating that week's topic. We know that these conversations surrounding scars on our soul can be challenging, and we want to provide as many resources as possible to find help, hope and healing in the midst of these struggles. Be sure to check to show notes for more information and helpful resources. You can find our full "Scars on the Soul" sermon series on our Youtube Channel at youtube.com/OrchardCC.

Today, we're excited to introduce you to Dale Tompkins, a local pastor and Christian counselor in our region, as he joins Astin Kahnk and Pastor Chip Parker for a conversation about navigating grief. Listen in as they discuss some of ways that grief can manifest in our lives, how we can allow God in to our grief, and how we can support someone who's grieving. Let's dive into today's conversation together.

Resources:

Seasons of Sorrow - Tim Challies

Suffering - Paul David Tripp

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy - Mark Vroegop

Heaven - Randy Alcorn

If you have any questions about this podcast, or about The Orchard Community Church, we would love to hear from you! Visit our website at theorchardcc.org and fill out our contact form, or send us a message on Facebook (@IAmTheOrchard) or Instagram (@theorchard.cc). Until next time!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Just remembering that grief is going to shape the griever. And that grief is a stewardship. It's just another thing we're called to steward in life.

SPEAKER_08 0:08

And I think that idea of shaping, I mean, that can be both positive and negative depending on how you handle the grief and how you know you view what is happening through it. Because I mean, there's people that come out the other side of grief and they've been shaped, but it's not good.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

There is a a compounding nature, maybe is the best way to say it, to grief. Yeah that if we don't deal with it and we just push it down and keep going and keep going and keep going, and then all of a sudden, what to the outside world looks so silly or weird that you're grieving that much about that particular thing, that's where a good Christian is being slower to speak and is leaning in and saying, Well, tell me about the other losses you've had in your life.

SPEAKER_04 0:55

Welcome to Let's Talk About That, the podcast where we deep dive into Sunday's message and explore your questions. I'm your host, Aston Kank, and I'm excited to share this journey with you. Whether you're a longtime member of the Orchard or a first-time visitor, Let's Talk About That is your space to explore, reflect, and connect. Join us as we navigate the intricacies of faith, spirituality, and daily life, seeking to understand how the wisdom shared on Sundays can be applied to our modern challenges. So grab a cup of coffee, find a comfortable space, and let's dive in together. This is Let's Talk About That, where the conversation about Sunday's message never stops. Well, welcome back to Let's Talk About That. And today we're going to be diving deeper into our new sermon series, which is called Scars on the Soul. And we're going to be taking some time to talk through something that I'm sure everyone has experienced in their life, and that is grief. And I'm very happy to have two fantastic gentlemen sitting across from me, our lead pastor Chip Parker, as well as Dale Tompkins, which is a local pastor and a Christian counselor in the area. So, gentlemen, thanks for being here today.

SPEAKER_08 2:07

Thanks for having me. Yeah. For time uh Chip and Dale have been on the podcast. This is let's just get it out there. Yeah. Like we just you just gotta get it out there.

SPEAKER_04 2:15

I've been trying so hard not to put Chip and Dale. Just put Dale and Chip.

SPEAKER_08 2:19

Thanks. I don't know if you got the calendar invite, I got it, but you made sure it was Dale and Chip in the calendar invite. You did, yeah. I did, yes. So I gotta ask Dale, was that as big a joke when you were growing up?

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_08 2:30

I've got it from the chip side. I never knew it from the Dale side.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Absolutely. And anytime somebody could get it in there, that was that was yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:37

I will say though, the one that was worse than any chip and dale joke was in fourth grade social studies when we learned what buffalo chips were. You know what buffalo chips are asking? I don't. Fried or fried, dried buffalo poop that Indians would burn and you know, Native Americans would use. So that was a bad day. Chip and Dale was not as bad.

SPEAKER_04 3:00

Yeah, no. That was a bad day to be named chip. Yes, yes, 100%. Well, Dale, uh, thanks for being here. Why don't you just let our listeners know who you are and just tell them a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Uh my name is Dale Tompkins. I am the pastor of Church on the Way, and I have been doing that for 20 something years now. Wow. And um founding pastor. Yeah, yeah, planted the church and been uh in that process, there was just a lot of hurting people and a lot of situations that needed a little bit more care than my seminary kind of degree had helped me with. Okay. So I went back and got a degree in counseling and again just kind of grew out of people in my church needing help with things that I didn't know how to do. And so I wanted to learn how to serve them and care for them the best I could. Been doing that for probably 15 years now here in Lake City. And yeah, so just love walking with people and helping people.

SPEAKER_08 3:52

I love it. I think it's it is one, just from a, you know, looking at it objectively standpoint, fascinating. But, you know, seeing people in the church who assume because you're a pastor, you're a counselor is what is what I'm talking about. Like that's kind of fascinating that we link those two things, and then it gets very, I think overwhelming might be the right word as a pastor, because like, you know, Dale has been trained and studied as a counselor. I have not. In fact, I am not a great counselor, I am probably a D minus counselor because I tend to try to be funny when it gets awkward, and then I try to be blunt when I want to be clear. And, you know, I think it's important, you know, for not just people in the church to know that there is a difference between those things. Not that you can't go to your pastor and have someone to talk to, yeah, but there's a difference between someone who is doing, you know, professional counseling and someone who is is your pastor. And it's so it's important for people in church to know that, but it's also important, I think, for pastors to know that. That, you know, hey, it is okay to say, yeah, this is beyond me. Let's bring in somebody who knows a little bit more about this, who knows how to talk about this. And that's not saying that, you know, knowing scripture is not enough to address some of these issues. It is, but you know, I I learned from Pastor Eddie, you know, I kind of have like a three-visit rule. If you need to talk more than three times about one subject, we need to find you somebody to talk to. Yeah. You know, and so I think it's good when you see guys like Dale who have, you know, joined both of those worlds and provide a resource for our community for you know people to go to for counseling from a, you know, not just a Christian perspective, but a biblical perspective. Yeah. Because always, you know, the term Christian counseling isn't always necessarily what you would hope it is, but biblical counseling is it is a different ballgame. And so I think that's a great resource for our community and to know the difference between those two, I think, is important.

SPEAKER_04 5:43

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're very excited to have you on the podcast today. So we'll just go ahead and jump right into the conversation. So, what are some different ways that grief can be seen in our lives?

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Well, grief shows up in a in a number of ways that impact typically some kind of loss. And and that can be the loss of a loved one, you know, in my personal life. My brother died when he was 30. And that unnaturalness, yeah, right. You know, you you expect your grandparents to die, you expect your parents to die, and you know, and and so sometimes that disordered death, yeah, if that makes sense, um, can create that. But also the loss of a job, the loss of, you know, one of one of the elders at my church, his entire industry went away over life because of some changes in legislation. And so his whole career path just instantly, you know, is gone. So that that's a form of grief of like, now what do I do? I'm I'm 30 something years old. This is all I've ever done. You know, what how do I move forward? But there there's at the center of any grief, there's some kind of loss.

SPEAKER_05 6:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Yeah. Right. And and whether that's a person, a job, a possession, uh, a pet.

SPEAKER_05 6:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Like there, there's some kind of loss that has happened. And it's now how do we deal with that? And I think Tim Chalice is it kind of gives us a very helpful definition there that it's it's a response and a process. That it's it's a response to that circumstance, that that loss, whatever that is, but it is also that that trial and that loss is the beginning of a process to get you somewhere. And the destination of that is acceptance, submission, peace, and hope. You know, we we have to accept the fact that life is but a vapor, the Bible says. Like it is gonna come and go. Sometimes there's a submission to, well, I think it would have been better if it would have happened this way.

SPEAKER_08 7:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

And we have to submit to, well, this is the way that God has ordained this part of your life to go. Yeah. And and to have the peace and the hope that the gospel brings, that there is no loss to a Christian that will not be restored when that person is a Christian.

SPEAKER_06 7:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Right. So if we lose our mother, who is a Christian, we know that we have the hope of the resurrection that we're going to see her again one day.

SPEAKER_05 8:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Yeah. And so we have to suffer in the meantime with that loss. But for a Christian, there's there's incredible peace and hope that this is it, there's an end date. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 8:13

I I think that that that's good what you said, you know, about the the submission, because, you know, my mother passed away at 50 years old, a little bit before I turned 30, two weeks before our youngest son was born. And what I've, you know, said since, you know, and talked about that with different people is, you know, I don't know that I ever got to the place where I was angry with God, but I definitely disagreed with God, you know. And I think where I wound up going just personally in my journey with that grief is that I'm not sure in a lot of ways I don't still disagree with God. As in if I'd been there, I would have made a different decision. However, I did feel I was able to submit to say, but I want you to make that decision, and I'm glad you made that decision because if I had made a different one, it would have been wrong, even if it's what I wanted.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yeah. And there's a great resource. If you find yourself in that place, Brad Hambrick has written a book called Angry at God. And he talks about the fact that the grief that gets that has become stuck in anger, he treats it like a journey through a timeline and and topography of that pain. Yeah. And that that means it affects your thoughts, it affects your choices, it affects your relationships, and and that we must shepherd that rather than suppress that. Yeah. So so as a church and as fellow Christians, we we need to help people who are angry and shepherd them through that pain, not just push it down and say, well, you shouldn't have that pain. Yeah, yeah. You shouldn't, because it is a loss.

SPEAKER_08 9:45

So what ways, Dale, have you seen most people like try to avoid grief, right? Like maybe either short circuit it, not deal with it at all. Like what ways do you see people do that?

SPEAKER_01 9:58

I would say the first thing I see is they throw themselves into their work.

SPEAKER_05 10:02

Yeah, I believe that.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

But whatever it is they do, they just do it 120% the next day because it's you know, the there's a rhythm and a routine to it. It's it's almost mindless if you've done it for a long time. And so that's probably the number one thing I see. Oh, and it's morally acceptable. Socially acceptable. Exactly. The second would be some form of addiction. So some form of overuse of a substance to numb the pain and and in a sense push it down. So if I can drink enough, if I can smoke enough, if I can take enough medications, I won't have to feel. And and unfortunately, you know, we we kind of live in a culture that promotes that in a lot of ways. And and and there's, you know, God has been very gracious to give us medicine to help us. You know, when you're when your leg breaks, I'm very thankful for painkillers. And and you know, after the loss of a loved one, to have something to take to sleep because you're just so grief stricken is is a blessing. But five years later, if you're still taking it, yeah, like maybe we've crossed the line here. Yeah. And and we just need to need to be careful and we need to think through that. I think does that make sense?

SPEAKER_08 11:18

It does, because I think, you know, one of the this is the second time we've done a series called Scars on the Soul, where we've tried to deal with heavy issues like this. The first time we talked about anxiety, depression, addiction. You know, this time we're starting off with grief. And what we've tried to affirm in the series is like you said, you know, medicine is a gift from God, and in many cases it can and does help. But what we try to put forth at the beginning all of this is the only hope that we have for real change is turning to Jesus and seeing Jesus so that we can be made like him. Right. And so what we've kind of said, and I honestly don't even remember where the the the wording first came from, is that medication cannot and will not make you turn to Jesus. But when you turn to Jesus, it can help clear away the fog so you can see him a little bit more clearly. And I think that image I think was helpful for a lot of people because it's like, no, that medicine is not a cure, right? But it can help if used properly. Yeah. But if you're looking for your answer in a prescription, it's not coming.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah. And I uh the metaphor I like to use is a crutch. So again, if I break my leg, I'm going to be given some kind of assistance device to help me to walk. And that is perfectly normal for you know three months to six months after I've broken my leg, depending on how severe the break is, to need some kind of support. Yeah. But if you see somebody who broke their leg and 10 years later they're still using a crutch, you'd be scratching your head going, wait a minute, like did did they actually heal the wound, or did they just patch you up and send you home because you're still, you know, you're still hurting? And so I think that is where, like you said, to clear the fog, help you to get to the place where you can sit down and talk about and think about why you are suffering to then move forward, that's incredibly helpful. I just would, you know, again, just looking at the long term, like what's the end game there?

SPEAKER_08 13:17

Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's good. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. So as a counselor, pastor, you've got some thoughts on grief, I'm sure. So why don't you just kind of maybe dive in and walk us through some of the the biblical principles that you see around grief that that you think might be helpful for for people who are struggling with that?

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Okay. Well, there's there's kind of eight things that I kind of try to walk them through, or at least in my mind, it's kind of the framework that I'm using as I approach this. And the one is grief is real and it's not spiritual weakness. Thankfully, we have a Bible that teaches us about our God. And when our God looked at Jerusalem and the state of their hearts, he wept.

SPEAKER_05 14:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

You know, when Lazarus, his friend dies, he wept.

SPEAKER_08 14:08

Yeah. Yeah. That was our text from the message Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Yeah, is that my first memory verse? Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 14:13

And even Isaiah, you know, 53-5, you know, he's a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. There's your word. So I think that's really good.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

And and so, you know, sometimes people can think that, you know, well, we shouldn't grieve. We're Christians and we should, we have the hope of the God. And we do. Yeah. But but just because we're grieving, it doesn't mean that we're spiritual weaklings and we can't handle it. Like we're imaging our savior when we're grieving the way he grieved about the things that he grieved about.

SPEAKER_08 14:39

So you can be spiritually mature and grieve.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 14:43

I would say for me, Brandon, I saw it as Christian uh counselor whenever we had a loss. We we lost our daughter. And so we, our daughter Marley. And so that was something that brought me so much comfort was the fact that my Lord and Savior wept. Fully God, fully human, he wept. And for me, that brought me a lot of comfort, knowing that it's okay if I if I weep. Jesus did, if I grieve, Jesus did that too.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah, absolutely. And so again, just having knowing that we have a savior who, in always, every way that we could possibly experience this light, he understands.

SPEAKER_05 15:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

You know, I've dealt with a lot of sexual abuse, and that that's one of the reasons it pushed me into counseling in the first place was that was a lot of the people that were coming to me. And for me to be able to say, your savior was nailed to a cross, he was stripped naked multiple times for just the pure humiliation aspect of it. Right. So he didn't maybe experience sexual abuse in the exact way that you experienced it, but he experienced sexual abuse because all of these paintings we have of the cross where he has something on are not accurate. Like he was publicly sexually humiliated. And so that's the thing I love about scripture and I love about our God is in every way, no matter what you're suffering through, whatever the grief is from, he understands. Yeah, he knows. And so second is just you know, death is unnatural, and that is typically again, there's some kind of loss that is tied to the grief. It's often death, whether it's disease in the sense that they're not dead yet, but but they have this chronic illness. My daughter was diagnosed with diabetes when she was six years old, and so you know, I remember just grieving for a month because it's like as a father with the internet, yeah, you know, you can look and see all the things that happened to a kid with diabetes, and it's like, you know, like I'm basically watching her die on some level every day. And then every night when she goes to bed, we didn't have the technology we have today. Thankfully, we have that today. But back then, it's like every night we're kissing her goodnight, knowing that she could go low in the middle of the night, never cry out to us, and we wake up and she's not there anymore. Yeah. And so you're you're that is unnatural. Yeah, that is not natural, and and so knowing that and understanding that, you know, that this is not the the way in which God originally intended that that this is a consequence of the fall.

SPEAKER_08 17:13

Yeah, you know, so and I think that's where that's where biblical counseling, look in a biblical framework of grief, really diverges from a secular framework because what secular grief would tell you is that, well, you know, we all experience death, so it is natural. It's just a natural part of life. And even though we all experience it, it does not make it a natural part of life.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Right, right. The third thing would be you never just grieve the loss. Uh you grieve what you brought to the loss. Does that make sense? Yeah. So what do you mean by that? So whenever you're talking, whenever I'm talking to somebody and they're they have ideas about God, they have ideas about the way their life should be. They have ideas that are often not rooted in biblical truth. The Bible's very frank about the fact such as God helps those who help themselves. That's one of my personal favorites. Exactly. Yeah, if you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you know. I'm sure that's in Proverbs somewhere. Somewhere. Surely. Yeah. But but we all bring into the experience of grief and loss some unbiblical ideas about the way the world works. Does that make sense? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:22

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

And because we have those unbiblical ideas of the way the world should work, right? So so even when I started this conversation, your grandparents die, then your parents die, then you then you die. But when a child dies, yeah, it's like, wait, wait, wait. That's not this, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:38

That's not the rules.

SPEAKER_08 18:39

Well, and even like you say, the order of that, I'm particularly struck by that because when my mother passed away in my late 20s, all four of my grandparents were still alive. Wow. And that was not that I wasn't pretty unique that all of them were still alive that late in my life, but like my mother was the first close, like intimately close loved one that I had experienced pass away. And that throws you for a loop because you're like, well, wait a minute, it's weird that my dad's mom's here and my mom's mom's here, my dad's dad's here, but my mom isn't, right? You know, and so it is it's kind of that that's not how it's supposed to work, did I think, complicate things for sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yeah, so I mean, and we all and the reality is we all have unrealistic expectations of some kind, right? And and it's yeah, I thought I was gonna break 80 on the golf course today.

SPEAKER_08 19:30

Unrealistic expectations.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Yeah, so it's you know, it it's helping the person not only deal with the grief, but you have to kind of unpack like what were you expecting was gonna happen? Like because again, that's where a lot of we talk about anger in counseling, you know. I say that there is an expectation in life and then there's reality. Okay. And so if your expectation is way up high and reality comes in way down low, the difference is how angry you are.

SPEAKER_05 19:58

Okay. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Okay, it is good. The closer it is that your expectations align with reality, the less problem you have with anger, or if your expectations, you know, don't exceed the reality, then you you're great. Yeah. And so that's what I see with this. It's like they're they go into a situation with some expectations of well, God owes me. I've come to church. I yeah, I've studied the blessings. Yeah, you know, right. And and that's you know, that's something again. Tim Chalice's book was Seasons of Sorrow. I highly recommend that book too because Tim's like a pastor, he's you know, he's world-renowned.

SPEAKER_08 20:32

If you don't know Tim Chavez, he's one of the best Christian writers out there now.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Yeah, and and then God allows his son to die. And so he has to wrestle with, you know, this reality of like, well, what expectations did I have? Yeah that because I have done these things, God is going to reward me, and now all of a sudden he's not.

SPEAKER_08 20:49

Yeah, I heard I don't remember what pastor said this. I don't, it was not not a famous pastor by any means. It was in chapel when I was in school and just made a statement that has stuck with me. Says, I've met a lot of people who are mad at God for not doing something he never promised he would.

SPEAKER_05 21:04

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 21:05

You know, and I think that and that was directly related to loss. And yeah, and I think that's a big thing. Dale, one of the things I've heard people talk about with grief. I'm interested in your thoughts on along those ideas of expectation and reality, is that sometimes when we experience loss, whether it be the loss of a child, loss of someone at a young age, loss of a marriage, loss of a job, whatever. I heard somebody say that you not only have to grieve what you lost, but that you lost what could have been.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 21:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah. I mean, that that's there again, I and again, this is the expectations. Yeah. I have all these expectations. Like, you know, my friend, he was like, I was working my way up to own my own business in this industry, and now this industry just doesn't even exist, you know. And and I think a lot of people, my technology background here, but like there's gonna be a lot of grieving in the next five years because a lot of industries are fixing to go away, and things that people have worked their whole life for just It's just not even a thing anymore. Now there'll be new things. I'm not a negative person. Like it'll, you know, every time there's some new thing. But, you know, like my friend at church, he he had to completely retool and go a different direction. You know, so so we're gonna experience that. But again, I think it's that expectation of like what could have been. Yeah. You know, and and I see a lot of people kind of fall into that. And that's that actually leads me up to the fourth thing that we normally talk about is the traps of grief. And this is where authors like Paul David Trip are incredibly helpful. He has a book called Suffering, and it's it's just a great resource. But we'll try and link all these in the show notes. And he talks about the awareness trap, which is basically the person becomes obsessively self-monitoring, constantly cataloging their pain. Um say that again in a different way, because I think I know what you mean, but well, uh let me go I'll put it in pastor language for you. All right. So the awareness trap, have you ever heard the expression new fear unlocked? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Right? I didn't even know yesterday to fear this. Yep. Once you start going through grief and and you start experiencing pain, and as a pastor, this has been incredibly difficult. I don't know about you, but for me, you know, yesterday I get a call, like, hey pastor, can you pray for me? Sure, what's going on? Well, I I've I've been diagnosed with aneurysms in my liver. And I'm like, that's a thing. I didn't even know it was a thing. Exactly. And you know what? I woke up this morning. I mean I'm one, I'm praying for that lady, but like your liver feels weird.

SPEAKER_05 23:28

You're checking yourself, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

But I'm like, you know, I've got liver issues. Like, is this a is this a thing? Like, so you become aware of something that you would have never been aware of before. Yeah. Another good example of this I see all the time in marriage counseling. You are going through life, everything is great, and one partner in the marriage has a affair or begins an affair or whatever, and maybe you stop it before it actually begins to a full-blown affair. You used to sit there on the couch and look over at your partner and see them texting on the phone and not think anything of it. But now I'm aware.

SPEAKER_05 24:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Right. And so you're you begin to catalog all of this pain that you would have just dismissed the day before, right? So that that's one trap that we kind of fall into. And it just snowballs because it's like, well, then this person died, and then this person died, and then this person died. And if your mother hadn't died, you probably wouldn't have been paying attention to the obituaries. You know what I mean? Like so.

SPEAKER_04 24:30

I would say I even fall in this trap, especially after losing Marley. Like now I'm so worried that something's gonna happen to Lucy and Jax. And so it's this constant fear that you have to sit in, but I have to remember that just because it happened in this situation doesn't mean it's gonna happen in the future. So I even catch myself even now still on that same mindset and having to take every single one of those thoughts captive because you can sit in that, I feel like, and you can get really stuck.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Yeah. Yeah. And that actually is the second trap, which is the fear trap. Yeah. So now that you're aware of it, now that you're cataloging it, now you start fearing.

SPEAKER_05 25:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

You know, and and and it limits you.

SPEAKER_05 25:06

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Like I, well, we can't we can't do this because this might happen. You know, I I've seen people who get into a car accident and then they never drive again.

SPEAKER_05 25:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Because it's like, you know, well, it could happen again. Well, yeah, it could. Yeah. But, you know, a meteor could fall out of the sky and hit your house or a SpaceX, you know, that's right. Satellite's probably more accurate, but yeah, that's right. You know, so and and then there's the envy trap, and I see this a lot in church. We get really angry at those people who aren't suffering.

SPEAKER_08 25:36

Yeah. So I think that I think that's good. I think and that's we I don't think we talk about that as much. You know, and again, you know, personally, in my experience, I found that I don't think it was like maybe the first holiday, but I think it was the second one because she my mom passed away at the very end of September. So it was still really fresh when the holidays came around. So everybody's still very aware of it. You know, the next go-round, you know, almost a year and a half later, well, I caught myself saying, Well, they're here with all of their family, you know, my family's not here. And and it was weird because I don't think I would have guessed that that's something that I would have felt, but a hundred percent. It was yeah, it was envy, it was jealousy. Not that I would say, I want you in my shoes, but because they weren't, it did something in me.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

And and one thing that compounds this is when the those people complain about their family. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

That that just I I see this so much when I talk to people, and I'll give you a couple of examples. One is miscarriage.

SPEAKER_05 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

A lot of times miscarriage happens quietly. Yeah. Nobody knows that they were pregnant, they didn't tell anybody, and then they're they're in church and somebody is complaining about their kids in the fellowship hall. And there is just this envy of like, you just don't even know how good you have it. Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_08 26:57

A hundred percent. And and so and miscarriage is a great example of that because that's like the you know, quiet epidemic that nobody wants to talk about because it is a secret grief. But then you find out it's like, oh wow, this is not as uncommon as I might have thought it was.

SPEAKER_04 27:12

And I think this is the statistics like one in four, and it's I I would say it's way higher than that. One in four women have had a miscarriage, but I definitely would say it's more like one in two now.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Yeah. Yeah. And and yeah, unfortunately, that has become more of a problem just with our health situation in our country. An another example is, and and this is something personally, like I remember so when Emma was diagnosed and we're doing those sleepless nights, like my wife literally felt guilty for sleeping. Because she we were terrified. I mean, like, we were literally terrified for the first couple of months and you know, really into the first couple of years of like she's gonna go to bed and we didn't dose her correctly, or she didn't eat enough. Yeah. And it and it's just a silent death. No, there's no crying out in pain, there's no nothing, right?

SPEAKER_08 27:57

Yeah, before the technology was out that you had live monitoring.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

We we were checking, you know, and so when we so we basically for a couple of years had no nights away from our kids.

SPEAKER_05 28:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

And then I'm in church on Sunday and I hear people complaining about oh, you know, we could only get away for two days without our kids. And I'm just like, talk about an envy trap. Yeah, like yeah, it's like you do you just don't even know, you know, and and and they don't know. And I'm thankful, like you said, I'm thankful that they don't know. But I think a lot of people fall into that and it it just exacerbates the grief. Yeah. The doubt trap, that's just theological doubt, you know, is God actually good?

SPEAKER_05 28:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Yeah. You know, and and that's I see that a lot. The denial trap, just trying to minimize or spiritually bypass the grief. Like I'm just gonna, a lot of men do this. We're just gonna push it down and we're gonna keep going. And you know, it is what it is. Yeah, yeah. And then there's the discouragement trap, long suffering leading to hopelessness.

SPEAKER_05 28:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

So instead of leading it to hope and peace, it takes you to a place of just hopelessness. It's never gonna get any better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 29:01

So so what do you what do you what do you see that hopelessness look like in people who have gotten there through grief?

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Um, just a lack of joy. Yeah. As Christians, we should be the funnest people in the room. Yeah. But oftentimes we are not. Oftentimes. Oftentimes.

SPEAKER_08 29:21

Matter of fact, if you want to list, I'll let no.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

But you know, it it's like they may not have lost their faith, they may believe in God, but like there's just a a sourness that has just yeah marked them.

SPEAKER_08 29:36

Just waiting to die. Basically. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

And and and I talk, you know, I talk to a lot of older shut-in women that, you know, like that's like I just don't understand why God won't just take me. Like, I'm like, I'm not gonna do anything, but like I'm just I'm just so tired. And I just, you know.

SPEAKER_08 29:52

Yeah, and I think that there's there's a place when people get there and you understand it because they are days, hours, weeks away, and they're like, I'm just ready to go be with Jesus. Yeah. But then, like you say, and Dale's right. I mean, I've experienced this as well. There's people like you, you have decades. Yeah, they're still live. They're 50.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

I'm thinking that's young nowadays. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 30:12

I'll never forget one of the funnest people I've ever pastored was a lady whose name was Leona McRae. She was 89 years old when I came to Airline and she passed away at 94 years old, I think. And she was, she was a trip. She was like so funny and she was quick, and she'd been widowed for a long time at this point. But she was the, like you say, the funnest person to be around. I'll never forget I had not been there very long. And one Wednesday night, or maybe it was Sunday night, she tripped on the sidewalk outside the church and and and scraped up her face pretty bad, like road rashed or whatever from the concrete. And our pastor who was there at the time, he was there uh when I when I first came. He said, Well, you know, Miss Leona, if you'd stop drinking, you wouldn't fall as much, like trying to get one over on her. She did not miss a beat. She goes, I didn't have to drink till I heard you preach for the first time. And she was just that kind of person. And so it does, those are the kind of people like there's a there's an attraction to I want to be around Miss Leona. She's amazing, you know. And so you hate when people lose that. So I know exactly what you mean when you say that.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 31:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Yeah. The fifth thing is anger at God needs to be addressed, not dismissed. And and that's something that I think the psalms are so helpful for. One of the things, one of the exercises we do in biblical counseling is teaching people how to lament. We've we've kind of lost that art in the church. But when you read a lot of the psalms, I mean, it is it is just the person going, God, why is it this way?

SPEAKER_05 31:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

My enemies are surrounding me. You know, they're not honoring you. I'm honoring you. Yeah. You know, like why is it this working? Right. You know, and and so to be able to go through that process of learning how to lament and and cry out to God and address that. Yeah. Not not try to dismiss, oh, we you shouldn't be. Like and at the end of the day, at a at almost, and this is funny, not every psalm, but almost every psalm, he starts out angry at God, but ends up in a good place. Yeah, yeah. But there's a couple where he doesn't have a good place. So so even on your bad day, I'm so thankful that we have scripture that reminds us that it's okay to be a human being and and express how we're feeling because God can handle it because he is God. All right.

SPEAKER_08 32:29

So I want to play maybe devil's advocate a little bit. I don't know if that's the right term here. Kind of lean. How about this? I want to lean into the city.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

He doesn't need an advocateship.

SPEAKER_08 32:36

Fair enough. Uh, I just like to cause trouble, to be honest. He does. So is it a thing when people maybe lean into their anger at God too much because of the, I don't know, maybe a better way to say this, the the trendiness of being okay to be angry with God. And what I'm thinking about is this, right? I'm thinking about the people on, you know, social media who their badge of honor is, oh, my life is such a mess. Oh, I'm just such a mess. Ha ha ha, isn't it funny? You know, I think I've seen people do that with their hurt toward God, where it's just like, no, this has become your whole personality, is that you're angry at God. So how do we make sure it doesn't go too far?

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Well, I I mean, I think this is where the shepherding comes in and making sure that they have the right expectations to begin with. Because again, a lot of times with those people, when you sit down, they have some very unrealistic expectations about the way church and faith was supposed to work in the first place. And and this is the process part that Chalice talks about. Like the grief is the experience, but then there is a process that you are working through. And again, I think if you're taking them back to the Psalms and saying, read these Psalms, like listen to David, listen to the various authors as they talk about these things. You're helping them give them the proper language to be angry with God. Like using God's word and and tell, you know, I'll tell people, pray this.

SPEAKER_06 34:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Pray this anger, yeah, but use these words as a template and then customize it for yourself. You know, I'm I'm not surrounded by my enemies, but you know, I feel like you've abandoned me with my child. Yeah. Like you've abandoned me by taking my mom far too soon.

SPEAKER_05 34:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Whatever that specific thing is, you know, cry out to God and and be honest about that. I think most of those people that you're talking about are probably a disconnected from a church, period. A lot of times, yeah. And if they are, they're nominal. You know, and so they're not really, they're not pushing into this process of grief. It's again, it's just kind of another way of I mean, humor is a way to deflect.

SPEAKER_06 34:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

And so, you know, we we kind of fall into that trendy make light of this, yeah, you know, and and I'm gonna say I'm angry at God, and everybody's gonna understand. And there's a large group of people that will understand, yeah. You know, yeah, but it doesn't mean it's right.

SPEAKER_08 35:00

I think that's I think that's the thing. I think you hit it on the head where their anger at God is more maybe an excuse for why I'm not, you know, leaning into it or whatever. And I think that the the idea of like you say, the process that there's an end goal here, right? It is you're not supposed to stay in your anger, you're supposed to move through it. Yeah and acknowledging it is really just dropping pretense. It's not like God doesn't know you're angry, it's just you being honest enough to say it, yeah, but not to stay there, you know you got to get to the other side. Yeah, so I think I think it's good.

SPEAKER_04 35:36

And I oh go ahead. Oh, I'll say for me, the art of lamenting. Like I had really I'd heard of that, but I had never really leaned into that until we lost Marley and I was given this book, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy. And I'm only 50 pages in because out of 200, because it's so deep, but it's so good. And the fact that, you know, I've I've loved Jesus my entire life. And the fact that like it's okay to be angry with God, but you can't stay there was like, you know, because to me, I was like, oh, I can't be angry, I can't do this, I can't be jealous. But it was like, no, the fact that Jesus experienced all of those same things when he when his friend Lazarus died just gave me so much comfort. So the art of lamenting, man, just completely just opened my eyes to just the beauty that there can be in grief and that refining period of your faith if you allow yourself to press in and let Jesus walk with you through it.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

Yeah, and I would argue that you have a more, you have a richer, yes, more robust faith than you did before the grief.

SPEAKER_05 36:35

1000%.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

1000%. And that's like you were saying, that is the end goal. Yeah. Is to grow you in hope and trust in your savior.

SPEAKER_05 36:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

And and that can only happen through these things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 36:48

Well, that's what that's what Martin Luther said. Martin Luther said, you know, that there are only there are certain things we can only learn through prayer. There are certain things we can only learn through study. And he says there's certain things you can only learn through suffering.

SPEAKER_05 36:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 37:00

You know, and and I think grief is a part of that. It's just the transition through suffering.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

Yeah. And I I think it I think it was Lewis that said that, you know, sometimes God speaks quietly to you through your life, but he shouts at you through the pain. Yeah. That's right. So true. You know, so it's like that that's when it's like getting your attention and forcing you to deal with some things. You know, that's right. Kind of gets me to the sixth thing. The comforts of God are specific. This is where it's really helpful to understand God's attributes, you know, knowing about his uh his omnipresence. You know, when when you're a victim of sexual abuse, he was there with you. You weren't there alone. And a lot of times, you know, when you're a victim of abuse, you think nobody was here and and he was he was there with you in the midst of that. He's with you, you know, when the house is empty and you've lost your spouse and it's just you.

SPEAKER_05 37:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

You're not ever really alone. So so it's it's nice to be able to help them to understand that God's comforts are very specific, his sovereignty, his purpose, you know, God's people, all of these things kind of help come alongside and help you to realize that if you're doubting and you're struggling with, you know, what does this look like, knowing the comfort of God because Chip calls you and and talks to you and or somebody in your small group is walking through and showing up with dinner and sitting with you. You know, it's it's funny. My grandfather was a deacon of Melk Carmel Baptist Church here, and that's one of the main churches I grew up in as a kid. And my grandfather would tell me, you know, I asked him, I remember, like, well, what does a deacon do? I knew they took up the money. How did you beak? Yeah. And uh he said, Well, you know, he's like, one of the things that we do is when a husband and wife and and one of the one of them pass away, is we go sit at the house all night. Because back then they had the they didn't come and pick up the body in like two hours. Yeah. It was like, well, we'll we'll see you in the morning, you know. So you're literally sitting in the room with a deceased person and their spouse. Yeah. And I said, Well, but what do you do? And he says, You you don't say a word. It is just the ministry of presence that they are not alone. And and reminding them physically that God is with them.

SPEAKER_08 39:13

And and that always struck me as now that's that's so good because I'm telling you, people mean well, but will say some dumb stuff to try to comfort somebody. Yes. It's it's terrible, terrible. Also, because I will not be able to continue to concentrate without getting the squirrel out of my brain. But one of my favorite songs only makes sense in the context that Dale was talking about, and that is Ray Stevens. I ain't sitting up with the dead no more since the dead started sitting up to. You ever heard that, Aston? I have not. Yeah, it's about these. She doesn't know anything about squirrels going berserk, brother. My boys know every word to that song. Anyway, anyway, you'll have to reach out to me if you know what song I'm talking about on that one. But that's exactly where, like, yeah, we we don't do that anymore, so it's not as funny, but yeah, it's still funny. Anyway, sorry, squirrel.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

So this the seventh thing is that grief's not the end of the story. And and that's something that we have to be, I think, reminded of just if nothing else, the eschatological future, the end time understanding of God is going to restore and renew everything. And and this is where for me it's so helpful. I I don't know about you, Chip, but I remember growing up going to church, and I didn't think heaven was that cool. Because I'm like, if all we're gonna be doing really boring if we're being honest, right? If we're just gonna be singing these songs 24-7, yeah, how hot is that other place? No, yeah, but but when when I really started to understand that I was not made for heaven, I was made for earth, and that when you read the Bible, that is where we end up. Heaven comes to earth in Revelation. We are not going to heaven, and so we are made to live on this earth, but in a perfected state. That is the end of the story, man. Yeah, like, and and all of the people that I love and care for who love Jesus are going to be there for eternity, and I will never have to grieve.

SPEAKER_05 41:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Like that's that's an exciting view of the afterlife that I don't think as a kid I got. No, yeah. I was just gonna be sitting on a cloud singing a song, yeah. Holy, holy, holy. And I'm like, well, he's got angels that do that every day. Why do I have to do that?

SPEAKER_08 41:23

It's like, okay, it turns a long time, guys. You know, yeah. Matter of fact, I'll throw another resource out there. If that is kind of like a new concept to you when you're listening to this, uh, I would highly encourage you to grab the book, get this the title, uh, Heaven by Randy Alcorn. I don't necessarily agree with every one of his takes in that book, but as far as like a just very easy to read, comprehensive look at heaven will be what Earth was supposed to be because heaven and earth unite, like that's kind of the gist of it. And it's good, it does make you see things in a different light because Philadelphia cream cheese, you know, on a cloud with people who sing off key did not sound like a great eternity for a while. But you know, turns out that's not what it is.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

Yeah. So so helping people remember the end of the story, you know, is is is helpful because the grief, the loss can feel like that's the end of the story.

SPEAKER_05 42:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

For a lot of people, it's like, well, I, you know, what do I do now?

SPEAKER_05 42:17

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

And so helping them gently, kindly, not necessarily day one, but but in that process of reminding them that we have a hope that we can look forward to in the future. And then finally, just you know, we touched on this briefly, but the eighth thing is just remembering that grief is going to shape the griever. And and that grief is a stewardship. It's just another thing we're called to steward in life.

SPEAKER_08 42:42

And I think that idea of shaping, I mean, that can be both positive and negative depending on how you handle the grief and and how you know you you view what is happening through it, because I mean, there's people that come out the other side of grief and they've been shaped, but it's not good.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

Yeah, it it it always moves us in a direction. Yeah. The the question is which direction? And and then again, this is where I think the church and counseling can be helpful, is like it can shape you in a direction that is more helpful to you on the other side.

SPEAKER_08 43:13

Yeah. I think that's really good. All right, Dale, I want to I want to put you on the spot with this question a little bit as a pastor and counselor, really going back to the seventh thing, you know, about reminding people about this isn't the end of the story. We just celebrated Easter. We know that his resurrection was a securing of our resurrection, you know, uh, when we receive in him. Yep. All right. How do you comfort somebody who knows their loved one was not saved? What kind of hope can you offer them in those situations?

SPEAKER_01 43:46

That is that is one of the most difficult things, Chip. And the only thing that is above it is preaching that person's funeral. When family members call me, they're like, Hey, can you preach it? But he they're not. They were And they never professed, and that is that is incredibly difficult. And there's there's no real easy answer for that. I there's just not an easy answer. Yeah. I know it it is. I I mean I think it should if you're listening and you're not in that situation, it should spur you to evangelism.

SPEAKER_05 44:16

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Like absolutely I I don't want to have to be preaching that funeral. I don't want to have to be sitting with you because nobody shared the gospel with that person. Yeah. So so I I would hope it would spur you to evangelism. Yeah. For the family that you do have left.

SPEAKER_08 44:32

It's, you know, it it is it is hard. I think what even complicates it sometimes is the part of the world we live in with this, you know, southern fried Christianity that we have going on, is that there's a lot of times where somebody has made a profession of faith, you know that they know enough to have a relationship with Jesus, but you look at their life and there's no fruit of it. Yeah, you know, and the family's kind of left in that limbo of, all right, so how much do we play in this? How much do we look at this realistically? And I think, you know, that it is important in my in my experience, it's been important to in those situations just try to show as much grace as possible. Yeah. There are some times I think that our theopraxy is maybe more important than our theology, that how that that you know, us living that out in in grace in that moment is more important than parsing the finest points of theology we have with these people. I'll never forget, and I won't say names on this podcast because they may be listening to it. But there was somebody who was grieving the loss of a dear pet, you know, like loved this pet so much. And someone in our church goes, You know that they don't go to heaven, right? Like your pet doesn't have a soul. And I was like, brother, this is not the time for a theology lesson right now, you know? And and so I I think that that that's where maybe if you're in that situation with someone who's struggling, just do as much as you can to show grace. And again, like you already said, sometimes, you know, Dale, the best thing we can do is just shut up and sit down, yeah, you know, and and let that be the comfort that it is.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

And I and I want to chase that squirrel. I don't know if the pet was a squirrel, but I want to chase that's that squirrel in just a second. But I want to circle back, I had a chance to think one small way that there is a possibility of giving hope. And I don't want to give false hope by any means, but I really wonder how many people in the thieves family that was next to Jesus on the cross believed he was going to heaven. That's 100%.

SPEAKER_05 46:39

Yeah, that's so good.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

And you don't know what happens in those last few hours when when the reality of death kicks in, yeah, what happens. And again, I don't want to give false hope. Yeah, but like you know, that is always a possibility, and that is always something that I can encourage you to hope happened. So there's that.

SPEAKER_08 47:00

I think that I think that's really good because I think that that is in my experience a way that you do not have to compromise your theological convictions, but you can say at the end of the day, we don't know what happened between them and the Lord, especially in the part of the world we grow up in where the knowledge required for that is maybe more abundant than it would be in other places in the world where it's just not accessible to them. So I think that's really good.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Yeah. But to the pet thing, and this is something I've noticed over my years of ministry, is people will have the loss of a loved one, mom, dad, whatever the person was to them in their life, and they will go back to work and they will power through for the family, they will do what they have to do. And then when their dog dies, it ain't about the dog. Yeah. That's when the grief of the previous loss catches up with them. Yep. And all of us are looking there going, what hand it was a dog. Yeah, it was a cat, you know. And my wife, if she probably won't listen to this, but if she does mine doesn't either, you're fine. If she did, she's like, I might grieve more for my cats than you, Dale. But but like that's there, there is a a compounding nature, maybe is the best way to say it, to grief. Yeah. That if we don't deal with it and we just push it down and keep going and keep going and keep going, and then all of a sudden, what to the outside world looks so silly or weird that you're grieving that much about that particular thing, that's where a good Christian is being slower to speak and is leaning in and saying, Well, tell me about the other losses you've had in your life.

SPEAKER_05 48:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

What what's happened in your family in the last couple of years? You know, and then it's all of a sudden of like, you know, it just it comes out, and it's really not about the pet. Like, I mean, it is to a degree, but like, or or the pet represented the last connection I had to my wife, yeah, or to my husband.

SPEAKER_05 48:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:59

And when I lose that, I feel like now, now I've fully lost my spouse.

SPEAKER_08 49:04

That makes them really that's a really good word because just the compounding nature of grief, you know, like you're not as moved when a grandparent passes away or you know, a sibling passes away, but when those losses come back to back, and then all of a sudden, well, I had a coworker I haven't seen in 15 years, and then boom, you know, like just whatever it is, it hits. And I think we saw a lot of that during COVID, you know, when there was just loss upon loss upon loss, and you got numb to it, and then in 22, something happens and it's like boom, it all hits. Yeah. And yeah, that's a good word.

SPEAKER_04 49:39

Yeah. No, so I would have a question for you. So, what would you want to tell someone maybe who is currently walking through grief or a fresh, like just grief has just happened? Like, what would you be kind of like the first thing, you know, not only as a pastor, but also as a counselor, kind of like combined? What would you tell them?

SPEAKER_01 49:58

The the importance of community. Don't walk alone. Yeah. I mean, theologically, you're never walking alone. God is always with you, even in the valley of the shadow of death. Although I'm with you. Like, he is with you, yes. But Christianity is not an individual sport, it's a team sport. It was never meant to be done by yourself. Yeah. As Americans, we've made it into an individualistic sport. That's right. But but that's not the biblical way.

SPEAKER_05 50:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:24

And so finding some fellow travelers who maybe are ahead of you.

SPEAKER_05 50:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

Right. So if you've if you just lost your spouse, find some widows who like five, 10 years ago lost their spouse that can walk with you through this process. Yeah. I don't know that you always need counseling per se. Yeah. But you do need people.

SPEAKER_05 50:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

And and and sometimes you need counseling if it is a complex, complicated thing, but but most of the time you just need a group of people who understand and don't say the stupid things. Yeah. Like, oh, God just needed another angel in heaven. The brother. He's got plenty of angels. Top three. He's got plenty of angels. He doesn't need another angel. Yeah. Well, actually.

SPEAKER_05 51:08

Yeah. Technically.

SPEAKER_01 51:11

Yeah. So it, you know, having people that have experienced it that know not to say the dumb things. Yeah. They know when to just shut their mouth and let you talk. Yeah. And and grieve. Yeah. And that are going to reach out to you and text you and say, hey, I'm praying for you today.

SPEAKER_05 51:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

When the church is being the church, it's an amazing thing.

SPEAKER_05 51:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

I agree. But unfortunately, like I say, we we tend to be more individualistic and I don't want to bother people. That that's the big thing I hear. Yeah. Is I don't want to be a bother. That's what, that's what we're here for.

SPEAKER_04 51:43

We have no idea what that text message or what that drop by or what that surprise meal would do to that person. The fact that they could be praying, like, God, does anyone, or even think like once they're past the grieving stage, and you know, it's a couple months later, it's like, have they forgotten about me? I don't want, I don't want this person to be forgotten.

SPEAKER_05 52:00

But like, yeah, you know, that's good.

SPEAKER_04 52:01

The the meal train stops, the phone call stop. And I feel like that's where, you know, we have to, you know, find a balance of like making sure you check in on that person, but not like bombard them every day with it.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

Yeah, and we're we're very much we like to come in, make a big show, and and I don't mean that in a negative way. I just mean like we're we're we're providing meals, we're doing all these things.

SPEAKER_08 52:22

I'm okay making that in a negative way sometime. Don't be one of the people who makes everybody's loss about you.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

There's that. I'm just gonna throw that out there.

SPEAKER_08 52:28

Don't don't be one of those people that your your time to shine is when somebody dies and you make it all about you. Let the people who need to grieve grieve.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

Yeah. And and so three months later, yeah, the house is quiet, nobody's dropping by, yeah. Not getting the food, not getting the, you know, that's when a group of people that I almost kind of that are outside of my church, but that I am friends with, but I like to kind of sit back and let all of those people do the things they're gonna do for the first three months, and then just create a couple of reminders in my calendar.

SPEAKER_05 53:01

I've done that too to like some friends.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

Reach out three months from now, reach out six months from now. Yeah. And and not, you know, how are you grieving? Yeah, but how are you doing? Yeah. How's the grief going? Yeah, I've been thinking about you a lot. I've been praying for you. Is there anything I can pray for you? Like you say, you never know how they were praying that morning. Like, does anybody care? Yeah. And and the reality is they do, yeah, but somebody else's family died. So the care ministry is now focusing on them. And it's not, again, that's why I say it's not a negative thing. It's they're doing what they can do, but death just doesn't happen once. Yeah. That's right. It it's constantly happening. Yeah. You know, and so we're we're constantly as a church having to triage and and help as many people as we can. But it would be it's helpful for us to also think about that and and to be able to do that. There's a, and I want to say it's like Jonathan's ministry, or there's a particular ministry that that we've utilized in the past that's super helpful because you you basically sign the person up and then they send things at a certain interval on on your behalf. And it's it was birthed out of that, that somebody was like, you know, it was great in the beginning, yeah, but then it just kind of yeah, and and so it's it's a a great ministry that partners with churches to help them be better at that. Yeah, you know, so it sends a reminder to the person that's in charge to to reach out. And and so I think that can be a helpful way to use technology to to do the church better.

SPEAKER_04 54:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:26

Good.

SPEAKER_05 54:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:27

Well, Dale, as we wrap up this podcast, any final thoughts that you want to share with our listeners today? You can also say no if you don't have anything.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

Yeah. Just just remember that we we have a God who grieves. And when he looks at sin, he grieves over that sin. It's important for us to learn how to rightly grieve the things that God rightly grieves. And and even in being angry, God gets angry.

SPEAKER_05 54:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:53

Anger itself is is not the problem. It's the you know, be angry and sin not. Yeah. It's the sin not part that's that's really difficult for us. And so when we're talking about grief, and if that's where you're at today, is just to know that you have a God who is grieving. He describes the entire world as groaning, waiting for the day that this corruption is gone.

SPEAKER_05 55:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:17

And so, so even the earth is crying out in grief. Yep, because of the state of the world. And so know that that you have a God who is with you and who will never leave you, and that this is not the end of the story.

SPEAKER_04 55:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:32

That's good. So good. Well, Dale and Chip, thanks so much for being here on this conversation. And to you listeners, we hope that this conversation was a blessing to you today, just to see that it's okay for us to grieve because Jesus also grieved. We will continue the sermon series, Scars on the Soul, next week, and we will take a closer look at the topic of loneliness. We hope that you guys have a great week and we'll see you then. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Let's Talk About That. We hope it encouraged and challenged you as we continue to grow on this journey of faith and embrace community together. If you have more questions, thoughts, or feedback, we want to hear from you. Be sure to reach out to us through our social media or visit our website to stay connected. If you found today's discussion meaningful, don't forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review. Until next time, we hope that this episode inspired you and will keep Sunday's message at the front of your mind. See you next week.