{"id":19943,"date":"2019-04-30T14:26:29","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T21:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=19943"},"modified":"2019-04-30T14:26:36","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T21:26:36","slug":"we-say-goodbye-a-lot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/we-say-goodbye-a-lot\/","title":{"rendered":"We Say Goodbye A Lot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BY REV. DEBBIE SPERRY<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t too long ago that a woman from my second church lost her battle with cancer.\u00a0Her daughter reached out to me to see if I had any photos of our mission trip in 2010.\u00a0I couldn\u2019t find them readily, so I started searching old emails (I\u2019m one who rarely deletes email for just such a time as this), and then searching old photo files, then Shutterfly, then Snapfish, and on and on.\u00a0Along the way, I got to see a lot of beautiful people I\u2019ve loved in churches and ministries. And, as you might guess, a number of saints.\u00a0I ran across a series of simple pictures we took outside for a photo directory at one church. And there were oh, so many saints in those pictures.\u00a0Ernie, LaVerne, Rev. Isabelle, Doris, Bill, Jeanne\u2026I could go on, but I\u2019m sure you get the idea.\u00a0And it was so glaringly obvious: we say goodbye a lot.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Rev. Debbie Sperry<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In my first church, we had a period of about six weeks where we were doing three funerals a week. It was originally a retirement community, and in that church, 90 was young\u2014and most folks can\u2019t live forever.\u00a0I was new then and good at death and had no idea that wasn\u2019t the way it was supposed to be.\u00a0In ministry, I\u2019ve had other years where I\u2019ve only done one or two funerals.\u00a0Then this last Holy Week alone I had two.\u00a0In 13 years of ministry, I\u2019ve probably done 100 funerals.\u00a0I\u2019ve had to say goodbye a lot.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as a pastor, I would imagine you have too.\u00a0We say goodbye in death\u2014at funerals for those we have known well, and some whose family simply need us to walk them through the step of closure known through a funeral.\u00a0We also say goodbye to people from our church or community who are retiring or taking a job elsewhere.\u00a0Sometimes we have to say goodbye in the quiet of our hearts to those people who seemingly disappear from our pews without a word. And, then, of course, there are the goodbyes of our moves in ministry.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are all losses. And losses beget grief. And grieving takes work. A lot of times in ministry I find myself pushing through all the required tasks, but most often, I don\u2019t stop long enough to grieve\u2014to feel the loss as it presents in my life.\u00a0It can feel selfish, or unnecessary.\u00a0But, if I\u2019m not careful, those emotions build up and begin to take a toll on my well-being.\u00a0I\u2019m not as focused. I\u2019m not as creative. I\u2019m not as fruitful. I\u2019m not as happy. I\u2019m not as connected with those I love.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the Holy Week deaths I mentioned earlier was particularly hard.\u00a0It was heart-wrenching and heavy,<\/g> and hit way too close to home.\u00a0And I didn\u2019t grieve well.\u00a0I just kept doing my job until I couldn\u2019t.\u00a0All that emotion built up and hit me all at once. I was exhausted, hardly able to do anything, and then had to fight the most severe migraine I\u2019ve had in months.\u00a0It wasn\u2019t *my* loss, but as someone who cares deeply for the family whose loss it was, I needed to grieve.\u00a0I hadn\u2019t really talked about it or written about it.\u00a0I hadn\u2019t even allowed myself to cry about it, not like my body needed to. So, the day after hitting a wall I dove into my grief.\u00a0\u00a0I was working, yes, writing liturgy and preparing the funeral, but not from the Book of Worship, or my regular resources, but writing it from scratch, piece by piece, just for the young boy. I cried most of the morning, received hugs from staff and colleagues, and began to share with my confidants.\u00a0Even as I write this, tears come readily, showing me that I have more work to do.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grief is a journey.\u00a0I can\u2019t just hammer away at it one day and expect it to be gone the next.\u00a0It needs my attention.\u00a0Walking, creating, talking, destroying, cooking, crying, resting\u2014each of those have been helpful tools for various types of grief.\u00a0They\u2019re worthy of my attention for a variety of reasons, but especially so when the emotions are strong and the loss is big.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We say goodbye a lot. In some ways we\u2019re accustomed and allow ourselves to become calloused about it. But our losses are still losses, and loss still begets grief, and grieving is worthy work for us all.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Rev. Debbie Sperry<\/strong> serves as pastor to Moscow First United Methodist Church<\/a> in Moscow, Idaho.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Grief is a journey. I can\u2019t just hammer away at it one day and expect it to be gone the next. It needs my attention.” In a post for the Clergy Wellness Corner, Moscow First UMC Pastor Debbie Sperry shares how leaders must allow themselves to grieve as they help those they serve to do the same. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":19944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[475],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-clergy-wellness"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/angel-3793570_1280.jpg?fit=1280%2C853&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-5bF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19943"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19947,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19943\/revisions\/19947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}