A Place to Grieve

So I would say the primary thing in life to do was go through tragedy. Yes, I think there's some worse how he denies it is the hardest. It's even worse to go through a tragedy alone, isolated I mean it's bad and it's dark but if you've got no one to walk with you. It's really the darkest welcome to family life today. We want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most and Ian Wilson and I'm Dave Wilson and you can find us@familylifetoday.com or on her family life app.

This is family life today.

It's almost as if when you're going through trauma and tragedy.

You can't catch your breath can't take a step and you don't even know how to sometimes take the next step and I know that we've gone through some hard things in it help so much when somebody comes alongside put their arm around you and just encourages you to take another breath and help move your leg forward because you feel so stuck down so we are back in the studio with this they run and then deal in Brad and Jill Sullivan, who already told us her story about walking through the death of the Sullivan's daughter.

The deal's on the same year I did know was within nine days of each other, which was heartbreaking to hear and yet there's more to the story that we would jump in today so welcome back to family today glad you're here. You and that in our listeners haven't heard the first half think that I would really encourage you to go back and listen to their story. It's gripping it's heart wrenching, but it's important to know the next steps and Rod is no stranger to family life of ease, the director of blended the best ministry in the world am glad I got her degree but no, I'm saying that because I say that all done I we say that everybody everywhere talk to somebody on the plane and they said their blended like general run deal like yeah my course you do because you just help so many people read area. How many books have you written on number nine comes out later this fall. In the end you're a kindergarten teacher and a near amazing hike. I have loved getting your gifted you're pretty spectacular and you're the perfect person to walk with Ron. You guys are cranky thank you thinking the breadth superintendent of school just stop by County school district in Murfreesboro, Arkansas, and I've no idea where that is worse in Little Rock right now so so would you heard the only place in America we can Bickford almonds to Murfreesboro when he dig for diamonds.

There is a state park and you can go in and literally Bickford that is fine when you keep it, really. Yes, I'm guessing you like to make the other town with ghosts associated with this is the lot. Arkansas limits the home, Glen Campbell know so well below buckling Campbell. I have some cables in my school so you guys have started in ministry and the ministry is called while were waiting and it's just like you said it's a ministry that seeks to come alongside parents that have lost children and is it a conference isn't one on one. What is it look like it's a retreat based ministry. We host retreats around the country that are specifically for parents that have lost children and you and then met there right yes well after we moved here and run to the job, family life, I was in a ladies Bible study with Mary Herndon and the only my story I'd shared about Connor and I was really in the throes it was deep. I was in a hard spot at that point how much time had passed since his death six years will be severed there six years and you just said you're still in a hard spot people will I go, after soldiers are but you're still so ugly.

It's a marathon.

A simple journey. There are so many losses in life that you can relatively move through quickly. That's not true. With the loss of a child. It's a very long journey and that's why this ministry is so important and you're not struggling, five, six years later because you your lack of faith is no right to me. Love you if you just have more faith and trust in route you would be through this by them, but you had incredible faith in a just heart me grieving just so grading and moving to a new place where I have to introduce myself for the first time and tell my story wants to know now how long you been married how many children do you have I'm picking out a house that doesn't have Connor in mind, I was still a hard season. Anything you probably don't know what to say when they say how many children we do we say we have three with three boys and yet you either get the stone nothing or you get okay or tell me more, you know, and best thing to say.

Tell me more and more I'm so sorry you don't ignore it. Don't ignore the fact when summary says well, our oldest child is doing this, our youngest is doing this, our middle son died when he was 12.

You can't. At that point, just say nothing in my encouragement. Every listing would be to say I'm I'm so sorry. And if you have courage.

Say tell me about him. Tell me more about that stated thanks to step into that space and let that parent talk is what they would love to say you said parents have lost a child. Love the tire is absolutely say their name, text their name down. Remember them going back to the Bible study. Mary was really attentive and that one day she showed up on my doorstep in a very dear friend of hers had lost her son Jeffrey in a tragic accident and Mary said I need you to help me help Jeannie and I said sure I will help you so I was helping Mary help Jeannie that lawn.

The whole Jeannie really needed me to Jeannie Knight got connected and we started texting me started talking.

We met a couple of times and then she called me and said hey to Little Rock and I'm going to retreat in hot Springs at the mom's weekend at this retreat center from onset of lost children.

Would you come with me and I like cannot. She's like sure so we went and that's where I met Jill and that's where we had a wonderful weekend while were waiting monster treat and it was amazing.

I do want to add while were waiting also has small groups that meet now throughout the country spreading like wildfire because they're such a great need for parents everywhere that of lost a child and just didn't know where to go what to do with themselves. So the retreats happen in various places now also around the country of people can go to and then there are small groups of people can be a part of then directly leading a virtual group that includes some people from across the world and it's just a place for people to go and be together in the beautiful thing about this ministry is that all of it is free treats and everything is free. Generous donors come alongside and make it possible for people to get the help that they need while attention your name when you just a minute ago said you were going to this while were waiting retreat. I get all emotional on turn up on roof look at me. I got a quick what I do know I mean I'm thinking why.

Like my mom never opportunity I thought what a beautiful, beautiful gift you're given to couples and families that gone through this trauma is like she I remember a little boy watching her looking and going and longing to find somewhere she could grieve usually was different churches I don't know if she ever really found that here you have provided gift and let me brag on it because we been to some grave groups that have been in a dark cold basement. We been at some places where the church doesn't want to talk about it.

They'll talk about all those other things on Mother's Day, but we are not acknowledged. You kinda have to go after it yourself and I was so fortunate its provision for me.

He sent me some wonderful women that were 10 years ahead 12 years ahead. This ministry ministers to us as parents.

They minister to the dance mom's that couples and it is in an environment where you feel loved on comforted you are fits in amazing food, the rooms are beautiful. The chairs are comfy and gifts for like Eagle walk into a warm, wonderful hug, but the bonus is is that God is at the center. At the end it's just been amazing in the short time that I've been with you all that God's hand is on this ministry and he's growing it. How did this idea, I'm guessing happen within a month of his death. You had to walk in grieving journey so give us a story of where this originate. When Hannah was in hospice. She spent the last few days of her life in a hospice center in Little Rock and you know when when you're in a situation like that everybody comes in they bring you food and they bring you gift cards and they bring you books and things like that. Lots of books and grieving on on grief and loss in all of these different things and by the time we got home after she went to heaven. I had a stack of books. Meanwhile, yes, I just don't know what to do is wonderful but one of the books that was brought to us there at the hospice center was a book called holding on to hope by Nancy Guthrie wonderful. I read the back cover of that book and kind of got an idea about her story and put it back in the stack with the other books because early on, even though I am a reader I was not in a place where I even could read, but after we been home for a little while. I was ready to read again. I have all those books I had been given. That was the one that I drew out of my stack and it was exactly what I needed to be reading because that those of you that are familiar with Nancy story you know that she had two babies that were born with Zellweger syndrome, which is a terminal condition. Our daughter is a very different situation. She was 16 when she was diagnosed, but it was a terminal condition, and she talks a lot in her books about the sovereignty of God and what you do with it when your child is diagnosed with terminal something terminal and you pray for healing. You know that God can heal and sometimes does heal, yet he does not choose to heal your child and that those were the kinds of questions that we had been grappling with for a year while Hannah battled this cancer and so I read that book.

It was so so beneficial for me. I got on her website and I learned that she and her husband host retreats for brief parents in Nashville Tennessee I came to him with the idea and told him about it and you know he was all in. He's ready to go. He is the classic extrovert. I am the classic introvert. I am not a retreat person. Which is funny because we do retreat, but the thought of going to retreat.

That was only other parents that had lost children was so appealing to me way outside my comfort zone but I knew it was something that we would really, really benefit from.

So we signed up and went and it was a wonderful experience.

There were people there from 11 different states and Canada, and our stories were all very different yet. The bond between parents that have lost children is strong in its immediate and we bonded with those folks and you know before we even went to that retreat. We knew that God had a call on our lives we knew that we did not want to waste the storm that Hannah had prayed for and we we knew that we wanted to use this in some way and while we were there it was just like this is something we would love to re-create this concept of a retreat for brief parents and bring it back home to Arkansas and so we came home and we talked about that retreat a lot how much it helped us and we prayed about it and said you know about this is something you want to sit.

Do you were willing but we didn't know how. I mean how do you start a ministry from nothing and then God brought to people and our lives.

Larry and Janice Brown who go to our church.

They had lost their son. He was a Navy seal, he was killed in action in Afghanistan about a year after Hannah one Sunday we invited them to go to lunch with us and they did. We told them about this retreat. We had been to and these people who we were meeting really for the very first time said well let's do it, Brad. What did that feel like for you was there just an instant connection absolutely and we found that since in the want for someone to go to dinner with someone you look open for ammo somewhere in that booth for four hours and at the end of the time we we Artie talked about the name and we are talk about location for retreat first time together. That's the thing that we found out real quick that we have comfort with other people but understood is that we we have families in our lives previous the children we were reaching out to you and it was this me to see the people that got Romero off.

It had similar stories that God knew we needed to see deal you know it spreads talking thinking that needs to be said. Nobody fixes our grief and nobody in the well were waiting ministry tries to fix anybody else's grief. The secret is community and sharing with people who have a similar grief is that second Corinthians best were comforting people with the comfort we been given from God and you just paying it forward. You just sharing it among others. And there's a sense somehow in that sharing that your grief somehow gets smaller.

It doesn't ever go away. The intensity comes and goes over the seasons of life.

It's always with you, your child is not here were holding on with hope for that day when we get to be with them again. So somehow it helps and I know that we need to put any more words on it than that. Then to just trust that the fact that God created church and this is church in a way to very specific need and that experience is really really helpful for us but I can imagine. It feels that again I'm projecting here, but feel safe is because when you share the story in a different group setting and they have an experience what you've experience you get all kinds of responses. They just don't know and they may say the wrong thing with the right intention, but here you you have a group that understands your most know they're not to get this wrong is the wrong thing is they have experienced what we experience, and so there's this healing right you had talked earlier about protecting your garden of grief that mean you have this garden with your child in it in their memories and their name and everything that's about then and when you lose a child related to this earlier in a unsecure Zen and am still struggling.

What's wrong with her six months a year after that first year eel should be moving on and so you're not living on it's just you carry them throughout your whole life.

It's like your other children at the center in Texas right now, thought about him today. He's not in front of me thought all about him today.

He's in your garden, Connor's not here day goes by that I don't think about I seen in the kids at school. One of the little boys in my class. He was wearing his dour shirt and I said so here letter that shirt today are making me think about Connor and he gave me they don't smile.

It's a garden that a lot of people want to trot on or they don't want to come in because it scares them.

You know you got lots of friends family that don't have anything to do with it either 12 years and they don't want anything to do with it. So you're protecting that garden when you're in a group of people that have lost children and you cry they get it when you laugh, they get there, then they're still not over the loss of their child. People you start laughing and you're in your mind thinking they think I'm really not over this. Yeah.

So do I do I laugh in front of them. Do I not guess am I rightly yes it's a hard roller coaster of emotions, and you're the one that has to protect them and regulate them because nobody else can help you and that's something I want to jump off of Woodland just said is because in our virtual group that met just a couple weeks ago we found ourselves talking with the parents about the importance of guarding and protecting your garden. I hate to say it, but as grieving parents. We have to just accept the fact that it's up to us to try and nurture the right relationships that will help us grief there certain people that are advantageous to your grief journey and their other people that really are not helpful. You have to be very careful about what you share with whom and that made me mad when I first discovered that as a grieving dad because I thought everybody else should be taken care of me but the reality is I have to figure out who are the best people. One of the best situations.

Who do I share with who I'm not sure with and when you finally get a place like while were waiting group where you're completely free. You can let your hair down and think about what Dan just said I'm deciding whether or not to laugh in front of you because I don't want you to think that I'm over my son. What I'm not over my son like that's way too much work I need a place where I don't have to think about that. I can just be real with whatever's there delete we talk about what you do at the close of the quilt to see it. We share pictures of each other's children's headstone and what we do each month and some people go to the cemetery and go to the cemetery like we help people figure out their own individual grief journey such different language and when you find somebody speaking thing language just want to be with them and you feel like you're not going crazy. We had the 40 bucks that came that man when I could talk to another mom and she was a little bit ahead of me and she would say you right where you need to be.

I did the exact same thing.

I just felt like okay I think I can breathe now. I think I can do this. I know I don't want to do this but okay, maybe I can make it what we were a gift from God.

This is because, as you've just shared. It's like you know what were going through.

You can walk in a place and no, I'm okay. Here some people ahead of you. You can be ahead of others is just what a beautiful gift as we started saying the worst thing to do is go through tragedy alone or providing a way for community to happen and heal people to have stories that people really seem to meet them because of what you've offered.

We started doing support group and lo and behold this woman came from the Philippines and she is six months in seven months and this is a virtual group and then she stopped coming anyway. Exactly why and I sensed in her where I was at first seven months in the closet curled up in the fetal position barely making it, trying to make it from my other kids and I messaged her when Nancy and I said I know you can't come to the group that we talk to me because of our connection. Now I'm zooming with her every other Saturday from the Philippines.

I know I messaged her this week and I said I know your barely holding on that I'm praying for God loves you.

She message that that was the only hope I had today think it's because I've been here right that I can minister and and because I have some legs underneath this now that I can let it stay this ministry that I met her when our retreats run from Friday night through Sunday morning and as people arrive on Friday night. They have this many of them have this almost haunted look about them heaviness all over them. Nobody wants to come to a retreat for bereaved parents. Nobody wants to qualifying. It would be this decision quickly and they walk in and you could just see it all over them. We just bring them in and just love on him.

We serve them comfort food on Friday night to discount because everybody's got nerves on that first night. But you know by Sunday their entire countenance has changed. They are lighter, physically lighter.

Their faces are writer they have a little spring in their step and they don't want to leave. They don't want to get there on Friday night, but they do not want to leave on Sunday because they had felt so safe you every other social situation you are in is a bereaved parent you have a filter yes on everything you say and even everything you you see because everything comes through that lens of child loss and when you walk into one of our retreats. That all goes away. The filter goes away.

The mass goes away and you can say anything. Share anything without fear of judgment knowing that everybody else and there is going to say how need to do you know how I had felt that same way. It's just an amazing thing.

Child loss is not a one time event. It's not over when your child dies your child is your future. So everything that happens from that point on is another loss when our children didn't get to graduate from high school coming when they didn't get to go to prom when they didn't get to start college when they don't get to get married yet their siblings do the brothers wedding him the way he wanted them exactly exactly.

So it's an on going loss that doesn't just and do you know when you lose a parent when you lose somebody that's an expected loss.

That's just kind of the end but because you lost your future when you lose a child. That's what makes it an on going loss of their something to grieve. Always something that I know you know as a pastor doing many many funerals and some for loss of a child you want to be a look at that parent say I have something for you. So how does somebody get a hold of this ministry and how do we send people to you.

We have a website and the website is while were waiting.org of course no apostrophe sets while were waiting on board. We also have a pretty large Facebook presence. We have a public Facebook page. That's just called while were waiting. If you are bereaved parent though we have a page called while were waiting support for bereaved parents. And if you have lost a child. You can request to join that page is a private page and you have to answer some screening questions in order to be allowed in.

We have to do that because of spammers and things like that. We will make sure your real person and that you have lost a child and it is a wonderful community that page. There are a little over 6000 people on it at this point and it is a clearly faith-based Facebook group I get on there every day and post something quote a Scripture or something to encourage people on the pages just to kinda keep the conversation moving in a positive direction in a safe place for bereaved parents together and so that's another place we connect with a lot of parents but to find out specifically about our retreats are support groups and those kinds of things you do have to go to the website to get that information and will put a link to that life.com as well and the I know there's a moment I listen right now yes right now the babies afraid.

He knows that fear this is the day you have to click that link. This is this is a step toward healing another somebody listening who has a friend or family member who's lost a child and you've desperately wanted to help them and you should remain in their life and ask him how are you doing today and tell me about your son and say their child's name and enter into that space as best you can but it's great to know you could tell them about this ministry and they can go to a different level in their grief journey.

Another support that you have is your new podcast yes because that was brought up Monday night in our group. Several of the moms were saying. I listen to it all the time so encouraging, so that's another resource to send people well is called while were waiting hope after child loss, and it's something we started really kind of in response to COBIT because all of our retreats were shut down for several months and so we did a few Facebook live things in and stuff like that that we decided that a podcast might be a way that we could just come to continue the ministry in its interviews and other things so it's tough.

I think one of the questions parents are asking themselves as am I crazy yeah I know brother Joe I know you heard that a thousand semi crazies.

It just made a relief to think this way is it can't be right.

You know my not being faithful enough like all of those shaming guilds being self condemning sorts of things we do as Christians were dealing with hard things. It's so relieving to just hear somebody say. Yup, that's normal. That's normal.

You're not crazy crazy you are in the right place.

We started saying if you go through this alone.

You could have those questions because you know the answer to this in community you go all this is what God made me for part of this doing will make it go. Thank you, thank you for sharing the story of Hannah and Connor look at man. You guys are you really using their lives to help others thinking Christian community is so powerful, so important, so needed when we are walking through difficult circumstances. The Bible tells us we are to weep with those who weep. We are to encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, that's what's been modeled for us by Brad and Jill Sullivan, Ron, and then deal is ensuring their story and what they are offering to others Brad and Jill are doing retreats but one day on weekend retreats for moms, dads per couples together. We got a link on our website@familylifetoday.com where you can find out more about these getaways that the Sullivan's are offering go to family life to the.com for more information.

Also get a copy of a book that Levi Lesko has written the list goes went through the loss of a child we shared their story last month on family life to the end. Levi has written about it in a book called through the eyes of a lion facing impossible pain finding incredible power and you can get a copy of that book for yourself or if you know someone who is grieving. Maybe you want to reach out to them and come alongside them to provide encouragement and support and help get them a copy of Levi Lesko's book through the eyes of a lion go to family life to the.com to order it or call one 800 FL today to get your copy again. The website is family life to the.com number is one 803 586-329-1800 F as in family L as in life than the word today. You can order your copy of Levi Lesko's book through the eyes of a lion when you get in touch with us just a minute and say thank you to those of you who have in the past partnered with us to help make programs like today's program possible. I wish you were here to read the notes that we get the thank youse. We received from listeners who tell us how God uses programs like this so powerfully in their own lives and really there thanks belong to you because you've made what we do here at family life to a possible every time you make a donation family life today is list are supported without your donations. This radio program this podcast are events or resources know that would be possible if it weren't for people like you who believe that strong marriages and strong families are foundational to what we are all about. As believers in Christ.

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Wendy speaks the 40 day social media fast is our gift to you. When you make a donation today donate online@familylifetothe.com or call one 800 FL today to donate again on behalf of those who benefit from all that we do here at family life. Thank you for partnering with us and we hope you can join us again tomorrow when working to hear things we ought not say and maybe the right things to say to parents who are grieving the loss of a child, Ron the name deal will be back with Brad and Jill Sullivan hope you can be back with us as well on behalf of our hosts David and Wilson on Bob team will see you tomorrow for another edition of family life today like today is a production of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most