{"id":20575,"date":"2019-12-10T12:47:28","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T20:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=20575"},"modified":"2019-12-10T12:47:36","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T20:47:36","slug":"making-friends-with-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/making-friends-with-grief\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Friends with Grief"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Rev. Paul Graves<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

If you have experienced any kind of significant grief within the past year\u2014or the past 50 years for that matter\u2014you know that a holiday season can be a particularly difficult time.\u00a0Grief, whether new or old, has a way of intruding into your daily life during moments you normally think of as positive and celebratory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you find yourself dreading holiday seasons like Christmas because you don\u2019t want your grieving memories to \u201cruin\u201d the holiday?\u00a0If I may be so bold: consider an alternative way of dealing with your grief this Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of looking for ways to keep grief out of your emotional house, invite it in for a cup of cocoa, coffee, tea, or even a glass of wine.\u00a0While you and your grief are sharing your drinks at the kitchen table or by the fire, sit quietly (tough to do!) and you may learn better about grief\u2019s real reasons for being in your life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Rev. Paul Graves<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As you learn more about why grief visits both you\u2014or anyone who has had some kind of important loss\u2014you just might consider the possibility that \u201cgrief\u201d could become your friend.\u00a0Let me just say it plainly:\u00a0I don\u2019t think grief visits us to make us miserable.\u00a0I think grief\u2019s real task is to take our love to a deeper level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, I do know we have to get past that miserable part before we can see grief doing us any favors.\u00a0And the misery is real, isn\u2019t it!\u00a0Daily it seems, I learn of people who have lost children, parents, spouses, and siblings to death.\u00a0The emotional suffering is very real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it can have real-life, negative consequences if not given the emotional respect it is due.\u00a0To deny that we live with grief is also to deny that we live.\u00a0Period!\u00a0We do need to take grief symptoms seriously.\u00a0But that doesn\u2019t mean we have to fear them, run from them, or deny them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That fear imprisons us emotionally.\u00a0And it also shuts us off from all that grief is ready to teach us in the long-term about the deeper layers of meaning about how love actually works in our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m learning to appreciate each day for the gifts it brings.\u201d\u00a0\u201cI treasure each person in my life and try to tell or show them how I value them.\u201d\u00a0You may have heard similar sentiments echoed by someone else.\u00a0Or you heard yourself say them.\u00a0Do not dismiss those sentiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But consider that grief likely has many more, deeper-lasting bits of life-wisdom to offer you in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead.\u00a0That potential wisdom is why being patient with ourselves can help us befriend grief rather than reject its tenacious presence in our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look at grief as a potential friend.\u00a0(Something like Jesus saying \u201cLove your enemy\u201d?)\u00a0Grief\u2019s gifts of self-honesty and self-compassion can release us from fears we didn\u2019t even know we have.\u00a0One day, you might find yourself saying, \u201cGrief, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The Rev. Paul Graves<\/strong> serves as the chair for the Council on Older Adult Ministries for the Pacific Northwest Conference of The United Methodist Church.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his latest post, Rev. Paul Graves tackles a topic that many wrestle with particularly as they approach the holidays: grief.<\/p>\n

When we are ready, Graves encourages us to resist our fear of grief and instead to sit with it and learn what it can teach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":20576,"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":"Making Friends with Grief #UMC ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[502,142],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nurturing-elders","8":"category-older-adult-ministries"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/sandy-millar-x8cNWbWwUKQ-unsplash.jpg?fit=1200%2C627&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-5lR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20575","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=20575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20577,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20575\/revisions\/20577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}