Newsletter Thoughts January 18, 2025

Dear Friends,

I hope and pray you all are doing ok this week. The stories and images that we see from the fires continues to be devastating. It will take a long time to recover.

In the past year, my continuing education was an End of Life and Grief Coaching Class.

The grief portion of the class was formatted around The Eight Building Blocks of Grief.

I want to share the first one with you today. These concepts can be viewed through two lenses, the coach or the person grieving.

The First Building Block

coach or faithful friend: provide a safe place

griever: find a safe place

A safe place can be physical or relational.

Physical: we want to be out of harms way, we want to provided spaces that are out of harms way. The challenge after a fire is that home was once safe, is now gone.

So what can it mean to have a safe physical space? How can we help others to such safety?

Relational: this one is more important because when someone is grieving, they need to be able to grieve without fear or frustration.

What might it look like to not provide (or be in) as safe place?

Oftentimes words spoken, even words that are meant to be helpful, make a place unsafe.

Here are some examples of what not to say:

At least you still have…

God has a plan…

I know how you feel…

Instead of trying to explain, one of the best things we can do is be present.

I’ll share more next week.

Last Sunday we made a prayer chain in worship. On Thursday we invited the youth to add to it. Let’s continue to pray for all who are impacted.

Peace,

Pastor Nancy