Note: My good friend, Steve Viars, Sr. Pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Lafayette, IN, leader of Faith Biblical Counseling Ministries, and President of NANC, graciously wrote the Foreword to God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. Steve knows about relating the riches of Gospel truth to the lives of hurting men and women.

Foreword

Can anyone avoid suffering? 

I have had the privilege of serving as a pastor of the same congregation for over twenty years. On the one hand God has graciously given numerous opportunities to share in the joys and blessings of my parishioners and friends. There have been many births, weddings, spiritual victories, and occasions for laughter and love. Countless days have been filled with far more sweetness than I would have ever imagined.

But the parallel truth is that I have seen first-hand how often men and women suffer. Job losses. Shocking diagnoses. Children gone astray. Abuse. And the caskets…oh too many caskets. I knew the Bible predicted this would occur, but it is different when it happens to members of your church family, your own family, your friends, and to you.

Of course, you know that as well. I have never met a person who has not suffered in some way. That explains why Jesus’ family is instructed to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). Life this side of heaven is anything but trouble-free.

That is why I am so glad Dr. Bob Kellemen wrote God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. You cannot choose whether you will face suffering or not, but you can decide where you will turn for help. Here are three reasons why I heartily and joyfully encourage you to carefully read what Bob has written.

It courageously faces the hard questions. You are probably fed up with pat answers and pious platitudes. Plastic smiles do not work, not when you are suffering. Bob writes with the seasoned wisdom of a winsome counselor who has spent many hours compassionately listening to people whose hearts are breaking.

It skillfully takes you to God’s Word. Listening is wonderful and powerful, but it is seldom enough. Bob is a careful student of the Bible. He believes that the living God has direction and answers for every hurting person who will humbly come to Him (Matthew 11:29). I went to college and seminary with Bob—I know that he is a diligent and accomplished student and scholar. Yet this book does not read like a distant theological treatise. It is more like a wise conversation with a mature spiritual friend.

It passionately points you to the Savior. The Bible is less like an encyclopedia and more like a novel. Bob’s goal is not to give us a few verses that we simply memorize and recite when times get rough. He is inviting us to use suffering as an opportunity to grow more in love with the One who suffered supremely for us. That is why there is hope for life’s losses.

I look forward to the day this project goes from the manuscript I currently have in my hand to a book I can read and give to others. My church family needs it. My counselees need it. I need it. And, if you’re suffering a loss or helping someone who is grieving, then you need it.

One more thing. Bob and I grew up a few miles from one another in Gary, IN. I have known him since we were boys running around the neighborhood. I can say this without reservation—Bob is the real thing. He cares deeply about people who are suffering. That is one of his God-given passions. Let this book be a gift to you, from a dear and trusted friend.

Dr. Steve Viars, Sr. Pastor, Faith Baptist Church, Lafayette, Indiana

Tags: God's Healing for Life's Losses, NANC, Steve Viars, Suffering

My Story of Finding God’s Healing Hope

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses walks with readers down God’s path of healing hope. During the first half of the book, to portray four aspects of the grief journey, I share my story of dealing with the death of my father. Even thirty years later, it’s not an easy story to tell. I share it today, just as I did in the book, with the pray that in reading my story, you too will discover God’s healing hope.

My Personal Candor Journey

I had to move from denial to candor after the death of my father on my 21st birthday. In fact, it was not until my 22nd birthday that the process truly began. I had been handling my loss like a good Bible college graduate and seminary student—I was pretending!

On my 22nd birthday, one year to the day after my father’s death, I went for a long walk around the outskirts of the seminary campus. That day I started facing my loss of my Dad. The reality that I would never know him in an adult-to-adult relationship. The fact that my future children would never know their grandfather.

As I faced some of these external loses, the tears came. Then I began to face some of the internal crosses—what was happening in me. I felt like a loner. Fatherless. Orphaned. Unprotected. On my own. The tears flowed. The process of candor began. The floodgate of emotions erupted. I was being honest with myself.

My Personal Complaint/Lament Journey

In the weeks and months after my 22nd birthday, I engaged in passionate complaint. What made my struggle with my father’s death even more difficult was my lack of assurance that my father was a believer. I had witnessed to him, prayed for him, and he even began attending church with me. Yet even on his deathbed, he made no verbal commitment of faith in Christ.

So I shared with God. I complained to God. I told God, “What’s the use? Why did I pray, witness, and share? Why should I ever pray again? Why should I ever try again, trust again?”

I shared my confusion and my doubt with God. “Why does everyone else’s parent accept Christ in a glorious deathbed conversion? Why can’t I have assurance of my Dad’s presence with You?”

My Personal Crying Out to God Journey

Throughout the 22nd year of my life, as I grieved my father’s death, I cried out to God for help. Up to this point in my Christian life, without knowing it I had believed the lie that I could control life through my good behavior. As my scaffolding collapsed, I could either work harder at being even better, or I could give up on God, or I could surrender to God. I chose surrender.

“God, I’m confused. I’m scared. Everything I trusted in is gone. I used to think that if I only prayed hard enough and worked long enough, that eventually everything I longed for would come true in this life. But now I know that’s a lie. So what is true? What have You really promised? What can I count on? I can’t count on myself. Father, I want to count on You. Please don’t let me down. Rescue me. Help me. Save me.” 

My Personal Comfort Journey

For me, comfort reflected itself in my decision not to give up on God and not to give up on ministry. Here I was in seminary, preparing for ministry, and secretly doubting God—doubting His goodness, His trustworthiness, His ability, or at least His desire, to protect me and care for me. As comfort came, I came face-to-face with God. We had some wild talks. We had some fierce wrestling matches.

God won. I surrendered. I was still confused about the details of life, but committed to the Author of Life. More than that, I surrendered to Him and was dependent upon Him. My attitude was like Peter’s when Jesus asked His disciples, “Will you, too, leave me?” Remember Peter’s reply? “To whom else could we go? You alone have the Words of life.”

I was surviving again, surviving though scarred. I was not and never again would be that same naïve young Christian who assumed that if I prayed and worked hard enough, God would grant me my every expectation. My faith was not a naïve faith, it was now a deeper faith—a faith that could walk in the dark.

Join the Conversation

What is your story of finding God’s healing hope?

Tags: God's Healing for Life's Losses, Grief, Grieving

Good Grief, Bad Science, and All-Sufficient Scripture

Yesterday, the New York Times published a fascinating Op-Ed piece by Dr. Allen Frances called Good Grief. In the article, Dr. Frances reports that a startling suggestion is buried in the fine print describing proposed changes for the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V). If this suggestion is adopted, many people who experience completely normal grief could be mislabeled as having a psychiatric disorder.

Bad Science

It’s important to note that Dr. Frances is no enemy of psychiatry or even of the DSM. He’s the former Chairman of Psychiatry at Duke University, and was the Chairman of the task force that created the DSM 4.

Frances paints an alarming portrait of what could happen under the suggested change.

“Suppose your spouse or child died two weeks ago and now you feel sad, take less interest and pleasure in things, have little appetite or energy, can’t sleep well and don’t feel like going to work. In the proposal for the D.S.M. 5, your condition would be diagnosed as a major depressive disorder.”

With practical insight, Frances then explains:

“This would be a wholesale medicalization of normal emotion, and it would result in the over-diagnosis and over-treatment of people who would do just fine if left alone to grieve with family and friends, as people always have. It is also a safe bet that the drug companies would quickly and greedily pounce on the opportunity to mount a marketing blitz targeted to the bereaved and a campaign to ‘teach’ physicians how to treat mourning with a magic pill.”

Good Grief

According to Frances, and I agree, the DSM 5 is proposing a radical expansion of the boundary for mental illness that would cause psychiatry to intrude on the realm of normal grieving. The bereaved would lose the benefits that accrue from facing grief honestly and candidly. Grieving is an unavoidable part of life—the price we pay for having the capacity to love other people deeply. Frances is right when he states, “It is essential, not unhealthy, for us to grieve when confronted by the death of someone we love.”

More importantly, grieving people, rather than turning to the Christian community for sustaining comfort and to Christ for healing hope, would instead be tempted to cling to a quick medical fix. Rather than facing suffering face-to-face with Christ, depths of grief could be masked by prescription drugs.

Though Frances does not approach this issue from a scriptural perspective, he does see the harm that can come from a medical approach to a personal, relational, spiritual issue.

“…there would be the expense and the potentially harmful side effects of unnecessary medical treatment…. After recovering while taking a useless pill, people would assume it was the drug that made them better and would be reluctant to stop taking it. Consequently, many normal grievers would stay on a useless medication for the long haul, even though it would likely cause them more harm than good.”

This is not to say that medication is never appropriate during bereavement. Grievers with severe and potentially dangerous symptoms could still be treated and diagnosed without the medicalization of every grief experience. As Frances puts it:

“For the few bereaved who are severely impaired or at risk of suicide, doctors can already apply the diagnosis of major depression. But don’t change the rules for everyone else. Let us experience the grief we need to feel without being called sick.”

Frances saves his most passionate plea for last.

“Turning bereavement into major depression would substitute a shallow, Johnny-come-lately medical ritual for the sacred mourning rites that have survived for millenniums. To slap on a diagnosis and prescribe a pill would be to reduce the dignity of the life lost and the broken heart left behind.”

All-Sufficient Scripture

While I would not choose the phrase “sacred mourning rites,” I am convinced that God’s Word provides all-sufficient wisdom that guides us even in the chaos of grief, suffering, and loss.

In God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting, I journey with readers through eight biblical aspects of the grief and growth process. Rather than “sacred mourning rites,” I like to think of these as God’s GPS: God’s Positioning Scriptures. They provide scriptural and spiritual grief and growth directional markers on our healing journey.

Through candor (honesty with myself), complaint (honesty with God), crying out to God (asking God for help), and comfort (receiving God’s help) we learn that it’s normal to hurt and necessary to grieve. We move from denial, anger, bargaining, and depression to God’s personal comfort.

Through waiting (trusting God with faith), wailing (groaning to God with hope), weaving (perceiving God’s plan with grace), and worshipping (engaging God and others with love) we learn that it’s possible to hope and supernatural to grow. We move from the world’s goal of “acceptance” to God’s loving purposes of faith, hope, and love through grace.

We must not replace good grief with bad science. Instead, we should face grief face-to-face with Christ using the wisdom of God’s all-sufficient Word.

Join the Conversation

What are the dangers of replacing good grief with the quick fix of a medical approach?

Tags: Allen Frances, DSM 5, God's Healing for Life's Losses, Grief, Grieving

What Others Are Saying about God’s Healing for Life’s Losses

The Big Idea: Two dozen book reviewers are blogging their thoughts on my latest book God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. Below, you’ll find a link to each review, the name of their blog, plus a brief snippet of their review. Post a comment on one of their blogs by August 1, for a chance to win a free copy.

• Rick Howerton: Small Group World. http://bit.ly/aelacY

“Blindsided, Ambushed, Amazed, Inspired… the list could go on and on. When Bob asked me to read God’s Healing for Life’s Losses for his blog tour, I was honored but saw little opportunity to aid the small group community. That is, until I had finished reading this amazing manuscript. This treasure that includes multiple pages filled with questions for personal reflection is a perfect tool for dealing with personal loss as well as the training of small group leaders. Small group pastor… I would suggest you get copies of this book and spend ten weeks with your small group leaders. Some of your group leaders will finally deal with past hurt that they have chosen to deny. The rest will learn the stages and phases of grief. They will be prepared to help their group members find hope, help, and healing when grief invades his/her space. Get this book, read it yourself, and then use it to equip your leaders.”

• Mark Tubbs: Discerning Reader. http://bit.ly/bW4yl2

“So much more could be said about this book and so much could be quoted from it, but I leave it up to the reader to order a copy and delve in. Or order two copies and involve a friend in the process. Pastors, counselors, and small group leaders, this book is bound to be a source of hope for those under your care who are grieving. Not only that, but it commends itself as a teaching tool in preparing Christians to suffer in a God-honoring, biblical way.”

• Brad Hambrick: A Blog from a Counselor for the Church. http://bit.ly/9RjV1R

“God’s Healing for Life’s Losses takes on traditional thoughts about grief and loss and turns them upside down. There is refreshing honesty about the pain of loss and the permission to be real with God and others as we embrace the mourning process together. This book is biblical, personal, and healing; I highly recommend it.”

• Mark Kelly: Grace Dependent. http://bit.ly/bj3KGZ

“Exuding hope, this book becomes a wonderful resource that compassionately directs the reader to find healing for life’s losses in Christ and with Christ. I encourage you to purchase a copy of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses for your own personal journey, and perhaps, a second copy for a friend or family member going through a time of loss, suffering or grief. This book would also be a valuable tool for a support group as they work through the grieving process.”

 “Finally, one other major feature of this text makes it immensely useful: that is, the emphasis of practical application throughout the text. Each chapter concludes with several application and processing questions concerning the subject at hand. For one in the midst of present pain, these questions can serve as skillful and loving counsel of how the content can be rightly applied to one’s circumstances. This is one big reason why the book is endorsed by the ministry GriefShare, a ministry dedicated to helping those going through the pain of grief. This text will be a welcome resource for any such person, and any person dealing with pain as the result of any means of personal suffering.” 

• Julie Ganschow: Biblical Counseling for Women. http://bit.ly/bmfZrw

“From time to time I come across a book that I want to tell you about because it makes a profound impact on my life and I think it will benefit many of you. I found such a book in God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. This is a wonderful new book by Dr. Robert Kellemen and it is a book that I have personally been waiting for, for a long time.”

• Keiki Hendrix: Vessel Project. http://bit.ly/c7IFRp

“A book complete on grief, loss, and despair that encourages the reader to seek God as their source of healing. Bob Kellemen has compiled an exceptional resource in God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. A great resource written by an experienced Christian Counselor who includes personal accounts of periods of grief.”

• Leslie Wiggins: Alabamenagerie. http://bit.ly/bVd2JH

“This book surprised me. It’s small, but more helpful than most books on grief that are twice its size. In fact, its size makes it ideal for giving. Pastors, counselors, and those who often find themselves in a position to comfort others in pain, will want to use this book as a resource and as a gift for those who are hurting. I discovered a book whose message is more than just how to find healing after a loss; it’s about journeying with God through life in this broken, sin-filled world.”

• Kellie Harbaugh: Tabitha’s Team. http://bit.ly/9QUylI

“‘We live in a fallen world and it often falls on us,’ Dr. Kellemen explains in God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. This has become one of my favorite quotes. Dr. Kellemen does not assume that a couple of Scripture verses and a prayer will make everything all better. But he also doesn’t leave you empty-handed… If you like to journal, you will love the questions that are asked throughout the book as prompts for you to journal your thoughts, feelings, and ultimately your journey to healing. If you have a friend who experiencing grief or depression, this would be a great gift.”

• Cathy Bryant: Word Vessel. http://bit.ly/aiv52b

“Words really seem inadequate to express the need I see for this wonderful book by Dr. Kellemen. Packed with scriptural references, God’s Healing For Life’s Losses contrasts the world’s method of coping with loss with God’s ways. The gift-book size makes this book easy to hold and read, but it’s not a book to be skimmed through lightly or quickly. Instead it needs to be prayerfully entered and slowly digested, allowing the truths of God to sink in and soothe the soul. I highly recommend this wonderful book.”

• Sandra Peoples: Heart for Him. http://bit.ly/b1q8us 

“This concise book is packed with hope for those who are hurting. The highlight of this book for me was the explanation of ‘Biblical Sufferology’ (chart on page 10). The five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance—are contrasted with the biblical grief response—candor, complaint, cry, comfort. Kellemen writes, ‘We have two basic options. We can turn to the world’s way. Or we can follow the way of God’s Word’ (16). God’s Word is where we find hope!”

• Lucy Ann Mull: The Sisterhood of Beautiful Warriors. http://bit.ly/cM8BhI

“God’s Healing for Life’s Losses provides valuable wisdom and encouragement for women or men who suffer any life loss, including divorce, church conflict, the empty nest, death of a loved one. Easy to read, practical and uplifting. Highly recommended.”

• Greg Baily: Word for Men. http://bit.ly/cJc8tV

“I am currently ministering to two recent widows and one spouse who have just hit the reality that her husband is headed to his Creator at an accelerating speed. I am going to buy more copies of this book for them, and am talking to the local director of a Biblical counseling center and my pastor about ordering a few dozen for myself, another chaplain I know and for their ministries use also. It is that helpful and that truthful. My money will be where my mouth is.”

• Cindy Baily: Word for Women. http://bit.ly/cTx6kc

(By Greg Baily): “Dr. Kellemen has been given a unique Christian insight into ‘sufferology’ and grieving. As one who wanted to help but only seemed to have a mish-mash of secular observation about human nature and some meaty Biblical concepts I thoroughly embrace God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. The book is made very accessible because he uses case studies to outline his Biblical stages, often of himself as he suffered through a great grief in his life.”

• Angela Dockter-Harris: Dance in the Rain. http://bit.ly/aKqdrS  

“God’s Healing for Life’s Losses provides such comfort to understanding sorrow and suffering. This is a must read book for those who are hurting as well as those who minister to hurting people on a daily basis. I suggest that those in ministry have several copies on hand to share.”

• Kym Morris McNabney: Writing from the Soul. http://bit.ly/9V9PXe

“I believe this book would be an amazing tool for those stuck in suffering, and worthlessness, and despair. Those that have been struck down by addiction, or found themselves behind bars. They need to hear the good news this book has to offer. It isn’t often that I wish to be rich, but after reading this book I wish I had the funds to purchase this wonderful book for those in my life, as well as all those that cross my path that I fear are hurt, and suffering.” 

• Cornelius Jemison: My Musings from a Biblical Worldview. http://bit.ly/dkjUON

“As a beginning student in theology, I can write a theology paper about suffering and come up with clever statements that describe the process of suffering/troubles/tribulations and the implications of believers, but it’s another thing when you are hemmed in, hurting, angry, and bitter with God. After reading Dr. Robert Kellemen’s book: God’s Healing for Life’s Losses I don’t feel that way anymore. In his book he describes the biblical and personal process of healing.”

• Joe Donaldson: View from the Second Chair. http://bit.ly/bXu1oZ

“This is a book that I will recommend to my colleagues, to those who counsel and care for those who are grieving, and for all who finds themselves in need of healing from life’s losses. I found it to be well-written, thoughtful, and immensely practical.”

• John Starke: The Gospel Coalition Reviews. http://bit.ly/aQzTjg

Author Interview: “Who should read God’s Healing for Life’s Losses?”

“Sometimes the second we hear words like loss and grief, our minds focus exclusively on death and dying. God’s Healing for Life’s Losses focuses on any type of loss—from the grand loss of death, to the daily casket experiences of the loss of a job, the loss of a dream, the loss of a relationship… So anyone struggling with any life loss would benefit from reading God’s Healing.”

• Aaron Taylor: Deep Thoughts with Aaron Taylor. http://bit.ly/cIiOUk

Author Interview: “What’s the “big idea” behind God’s Healing for Life’s Losses? What would you like readers to take away from it?”

“In a biblical sentence: you can grieve with hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). God’s Healing for Life’s Losses gives readers permission to grieve and offers a pathway toward hope. I want people to see their suffering from God’s perspective without denying the reality that suffering still hurts. What would I like readers to take away? The title and subtitle say it best. I’d like readers to walk away with God’s healing hope.”

• Lynn Mosher: Heading Home. http://bit.ly/bFmkjt

Author Interview: “Why did you write God’s Healing for Life’s Losses?”

“Christians long for an approach that faces suffering honestly and engages sufferers passionately—all in the context of presenting truth biblically and relevantly. We need to be able to face life’s losses in the context of God’s healing. Jesus did. ‘I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world’ (John 16:33).” 

Join the Conversation

What resources have you found valuable in dealing with suffering, grief, and loss?

Tags: Blog Tour, Book Review, God's Healing for Life's Losses, Grief, Suffering

A Biblical Model of Grieving: Hope in the Midst of Your Grief

The Big Idea: The following is a 1,000-word summary of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. In just 1,000 words we contrast the world’s way of grieving with the Word’s way of grieving and growing.

How Do We Face Suffering?

How do we face suffering face-to-face with God rather than turning our backs on God during the grieving process? What does the journey with God look like as we find hope when we’re hurting?

In finding God’s healing for life’s losses, we have two basic options. We can turn to the world’s way. Or, we can follow the way of God’s Word.

The World’s Way: Is That All There Is?

Students of human grief have developed various models that track typical grief responses. Swiss-born psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, in her book On Death and Dying, popularized a five-stage model of grieving based upon her research into how terminally ill persons respond to the news of their terminal illness. Her five stages have since been used worldwide to describe all grief responses.

A Researched-Based Model of the Grief Process

 Denial: This is the shock reaction. “It can’t be true.” “No, not me.” We refuse to believe what happened.

 Anger: Resentment grows. “Why me?” “Why my child?” “This isn’t fair!” We direct blame toward God, others, and ourselves. We feel agitated, irritated, moody, and on edge.

 Bargaining: We try to make a deal, insisting that things be the way they used to be. “God, if You heal my little girl, then I’ll never drink again.” We call a temporary truce with God.

 Depression: Now we say, “Yes, me.” The courage to admit our loss brings sadness (which can be healthy mourning and grieving) and/or hopelessness (which is unhealthy mourning and grieving).

 Acceptance: Now we face our loss calmly. It is a time of silent reflection and regrouping. “Life has to go on. How? What do I do now?”

Understanding the World’s Limitations

These proposed stages in the grief process seek to track typical grief responses. However, they do not attempt to assess if this is what is best to occur. Nor could they assess, simply through scientific research, whether these responses correspond to God’s process for hurting (grieving) and hoping (growing).

We must understand something about research in a fallen world. At best, it describes what typically occurs. It cannot, with assurance and authority, prescribe what should occur. Research attempts to understand the nature of human nature are thwarted by the fallenness of our nature and of our world.

As Dallas Willard explains:

Secular psychology is not in an “at-best” set of circumstances. The question of who we are and what we are here for is not an easy one, of course. For those who must rely upon a strictly secular viewpoint for insight, such questions are especially tough. Why? Because we do in fact live in a world in ruins. We do not exist now in the element for which we were designed. So in light of that truth, it’s essentially impossible to determine our nature by observation alone, because we are only seen in a perpetually unnatural position.

The Word’s Way: All You Need for Your Healing Journey

Understanding these research limitations, and believing in the sufficiency of Scripture, we can focus on a revelation-based model. We can address and assess the typical five stages of grieving, however, we can move beyond them.

The biblical approach to grieving and growing identifies eight scriptural “stages” in our responses to life’s losses. God’s way equips us to move through hurt to hope in Christ—from grieving to growing. We call it “Biblical Sufferology”—a scripturally wise and practically relevant understanding of suffering.

Biblical Sufferology

Sustaining in Suffering: Stages of Hurt–“It’s Normal to Hurt and Necessary to Grieve”

Stage                 Typical Grief Response                                Biblical Grief Response

Stage One          Denial/Isolation                                             Candor: Honesty with Myself

Stage Two          Anger/Resentment                                        Complaint: Honesty with God

Stage Three        Bargaining/Works                                         Cry: Asking God for Help

Stage Four          Depression/Alienation                                  Comfort: Receiving God’s Help

Healing in Suffering: Stages of Hope–“It’s Possible to Hope and Supernatural to Grow”

 Stage                Typical Acceptance Response                    Biblical Growth Response

Stage Five         Regrouping                                                    Waiting: Trusting with Faith

Stage Six           Deadening                                                     Wailing: Groaning with Hope

Stage Seven      Despairing/Doubting                                     Weaving: Perceiving with Grace

Stage Eight        Digging Cisterns                                           Worshipping: Engaging with Love

The first four stages involve sustaining in suffering, which we explore in chapters two through five of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. The second four stages relate to healing in suffering, which we explore in chapters six through nine.

Please always remember that these “stages” are a relational process, not sequential steps. Grieving and growing is not a neat, nice package. It isn’t a tidy procedure.

Grieving and growing is messy because life is messy. Moving through hurt to hope is a two-steps-forward, one-step-backwards endeavor. We don’t “conquer a stage” and never return to it.

Rather than picturing a linear, step-by-step route, imagine a three dimensional maze with many possible paths, frequent detours, backtracking, and even the ability to reside in more than one “stage” at the same time.

However, positive movement is possible. In fact, it is promised. You can find God’s healing for your losses. You can find hope in your hurt.

Whatever your grieving experience has been like up to this point, don’t quit. Don’t give up.

Join the journey. Experience the biblical reality that it’s normal to hurt and necessary to grieve. Learn how to move from denial to personal honesty (candor), from anger to honesty with God (complaint), from bargaining to asking God for help (crying out), and from depression to receiving God’s help (comfort).

Stay on the path. Experience the biblical reality that it’s possible to hope and supernatural to grow. Learn how to move from regrouping to trusting with faith (waiting on God), from deadening to groaning with hope (wailing to God), from despair to perceiving with grace (weaving in God’s truth), and from digging cisterns to engaging with love (worshipping God and ministering to others).

God truly does provide you with everything you need for life and godliness. Through the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and the people of God, you have all you need for your healing journey.

Join the Journey

1. What is your initial response to this eight-stage biblical approach compared to the typical five-stage approach of the world?

2. What do you think it would be like to apply the stages of grieving (candor, complaint, crying out, and comfort) and the stages of growth (waiting, wailing, weaving, and worshipping) to your grief and growth journey?

Tags: God's Healing for Life's Losses, Grief, Grieving, Suffering

Discover God’s Healing

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting

A Half-Day or Full-Day Seminar on Grieving and Growing

• Have you experienced a loss and do you long to find God’s hope in your grief?
• Do you desire to minister God’s healing to your grieving friends?
• When you, your family members, or friends are grieving over one of life’s many losses, where can you turn for help?

Then discover God’s healing for life’s losses.

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses, equips you to journey through eight scriptural stages in your response to life’s losses—helping you to find hope when you’re hurting. Dr. Bob Kellemen will empower you to minister healing hope to others so that they can face suffering face-to-face with God.

Presented by Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., LCPC: Bob is a nationally-known speaker, author, consultant, educator, pastor, and counselor. He’s the author of Beyond the Suffering, Soul Physicians, Spiritual Friends, Sacred Friendships, and God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. He has equipped thousands of lay people, pastors, and counselors as Chairman of the Master of Arts in Christian Counseling and Discipleship Department (Capital Bible Seminary), as Executive Director of the Center for Church Equipping for the Association of Biblical Counselors, as the Launch Director for the Biblical Counseling Coalition, and as CEO of RPM Ministries.

Attend and You Will Learn How To:

• Apply to your life a four-stage biblical model of facing life’s losses with courageous honesty.
• Apply to your life a four-stage biblical model of finding healing hope by finding God.
• Apply proven biblical principles to help hurting people to move through the biblical stages of hurting and grieving: candor, complaint, cry, and comfort.
• Apply proven biblical principles to help hurting people to move through the biblical stages of hope and growth: waiting, wailing, weaving, and worshipping.
• Practice skillfully the biblical counseling and soul care arts of sustaining and healing.
• Build healing communities where Christians find courage and comfort in God and each other. Empower your congregation to become a “hospital for the hurting.”

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses Seminar Schedule

• Session One: Launching the Journey of Grief: Honesty with Yourself and with God—Candor and Complaint
• Session Two: Inviting God to Join Your Journey: Finding God Even When You Can’t Find Answers—Cry and Comfort
• Session Three: Deepening Your Journey During the Dark Night of the Soul: On the Road to Hope—Waiting and Wailing
• Session Four: Traveling with God on the Journey of Faith: Joining the Larger Story—Weaving and Worshipping

Endorsed by GriefShare

“You’ll find that Bob has the unique ability to comfort you with biblical truth without trivializing your pain. To help you reinterpret your grief experiences in ways that make you more aware of God’s active role in your healing. And to help you discover how to experience deep healing and lasting peace in a world of suffering and pain.” (Steve Grissom, Founder, GriefShare)

Endorsed by Pastor Steve Viars

“Here are three reasons why I heartily and joyfully encourage you to learn from God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. It courageously faces the hard questions. You are probably fed up with pat answers and pious platitudes. Plastic smiles do not work, not when you are suffering. Bob writes with the seasoned wisdom of a winsome counselor who has spent many hours compassionately listening to people whose hearts are breaking. It skillfully takes you to God’s Word. Listening is wonderful but it is seldom enough. Bob is a careful student of the Bible. He believes that the living God has direction and answers for every hurting person who will humbly come to Him (Matthew 11:29). I went to college and seminary with Bob—I know that he is a diligent and accomplished student and scholar. Yet this book does not read like a distant theological treatise. It is more like a wise conversation with a spiritual friend. It passionately points you to the Savior. The Bible is less like an encyclopedia and more like a novel. Bob’s goal is not to give us a few verses that we simply memorize and recite when times get rough. He is inviting us to use suffering as an opportunity to grow more in love with the One who suffered supremely for us. That is why there is hope for life’s losses.”

To Host or Attend a God’s Healing for Life’s Losses Seminar, Contact:

RPM Ministries, PO Box 270, Crown Point, IN 46308, 219-662-8138, http://www.rpmministries.org/, rpm.ministries@gmail.com

Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth

Christ-Centered, Comprehensive, Compassionate, and Culturally-informed Biblical Grief Counseling

Tags: God's Healing for Life's Losses, Grief, GriefShare, Grieving, Seminar

International Grief Ministry Endorses Book by Noted Counselor Robert Kellemen

WAKE FOREST, NC, July 13 /Christian Newswire

Author Robert W. Kellemen, Ph.D., LCPC, has released the GriefShare edition of his new book for people facing loss and grief.

Christian counselor Dr. Robert W. Kellemen and BMH Publishers have released the GriefShare edition of “God’s Healing for Life’s Losses.” GriefShare, a network of thousands of grief support group ministries worldwide, is excited about the hope-filled, relevant help this book can bring to people experiencing loss and grief.

In 2006 GriefShare selected Kellemen to be a featured expert in its new GriefShare video series. GriefShare grief support groups bring respected Christian counselors, authors and teachers into local churches to help grieving people via weekly videos. Participants receive comforting, foundational teaching from Robert Kellemen, Dr. Erwin Lutzer, Dr. Paul Tripp, Dr. David Powlison, Dr. Edward Welch, Anne Graham Lotz, H. Norman Wright, Dr. Larry Crabb and over 35 others.

With the release of Kellemen’s new book, Steve Grissom, founder and president of Church Initiative, GriefShare’s parent ministry, is optimistic that even more people will benefit from Kellemen’s insights. People who’ve heard Kellemen’s teaching in the past will enjoy even more in-depth, encouraging counsel through “God’s Healing for Life’s Losses.” Readers will find comfort and hope as they discover God’s active role in their healing. They’ll learn how to experience deep healing and lasting peace in a world of suffering and pain. 

The big idea behind Kellemen’s book is that it is possible to grieve with hope without denying the reality of suffering. As such, “God’s Healing for Life’s Losses” gives readers permission to grieve and offers a pathway toward healing.

Grissom explains GriefShare’s decision to endorse Kellemen’s book: “People in grief can be voracious readers, looking for anything to ease the pain. And unfortunately, many popular self-help books are filled with advice that is inconsistent with the Bible, which will ultimately hurt them more. ‘God’s Healing for Life’s Losses’ is a biblically consistent, solid resource that can be read and recommended with assurance.” 

To learn more about GriefShare, visit www.griefshare.org. To purchase “God’s Healing for Life’s Losses,” visit the GriefShare Personal Help Store and look in the Grief Recovery section. Or purchase your copy at Dr. Kellemen’s RPM Ministries Bookstore.

Tags: David Powlison, God's Healing, GriefShare, Grieving, Paul Tripp

Journeying and Journaling with God

Worshipping: Finding God

Note: At the end of each chapter of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting, I include two reflection/action sections. One is Your Journey and one is Your Journal. Today, I’m sharing a few sample Worshipping Journey and Journal interactions to help you on your path of grief and growth—of finding God’s healing hope.

Your Worshipping Journey

1. Satan wants to use suffering to cause you to doubt God and to turn to false idols of the heart. In what ways have you faced such temptation? How are you overcoming them?

2. Facing his suffering, Asaph said, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you” (Psalm 73:25). In what ways are you responding to suffering like Asaph?

Your Worshipping Journal

1. How are you finding God even when you don’t find answers?

2. How are you walking with God in the dark and finding Him to be the light of your soul?

3. How are you using your suffering as an opportunity to know God better?

4. Suffering can either shove us far from God or drag us kicking and screaming closer to Him. Which direction do you seem headed?

Join the Conversation

Which of the interactions/questions/reflections most resonate with you?

Tags: God's Healing, Grief, Worship

Journeying and Journaling with God

Weaving: Spiritual Mathematics

Note: At the end of each chapter of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting, I include two reflection/action sections. One is Your Journey and one is Your Journal. Today, I’m sharing a few sample Weaving Journey and Journal interactions to help you on your path of grief and growth—of finding God’s healing hope.

Your Weaving Journey

1. In weaving, you refuse to give in to despair and you choose to perceive life with grace eyes and grace math. Where would you rate yourself on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being doubting God’s good heart and despairing of hope, and 10 being entrusting your self to God’s larger purposes, good plans, and eternal perspective?

2. How could you look at your suffering not with rose-colored glasses, but with faith eyes, with Cross-eyes, with 20/20 spiritual vision—grace narratives and grace math?

Your Weaving Journal

1. God is all-powerful, holy, good, loving, and in control of everything. What impact do these characteristics of God have on you as you face your loss?

2. How could you apply Genesis 50:19-20 to your life? “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

3. What might God be up to in your suffering? How could He be weaving good out of the evil you are experiencing?

4. God’s story doesn’t obliterate your painful story, but it gives it meaning. What meaning could you find as you weave God’s story into yours?

Join the Conversation

Which of the interactions/questions/reflections most resonate with you?

Tags: God's Healing, Spiritual Eyes, Suffering

Journeying and Journaling with God

Crying Out to God: I Surrender All

Note: At the end of each chapter of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting, I include two reflection/action sections. One is Your Journey and one is Your Journal. Today, I’m sharing a few sample Crying Out to God Journey and Journal interactions to help you on your path of grief and growth—of finding God’s healing hope.

Your Crying Out to God Journey

1. In your past suffering, how did you begin to move from self-sufficiency to admitting to God that you can’t survive without Him?

2. Crying out to God is like saying, “Hello, my name is Bob and I am in desperate need of help!” What will it be like for you to cry out to God, “Hello, my name is ______ and I desperately need you God”?

3. Picture yourself, and perhaps do this now, reaching up to God, open palms, pleading eyes, asking God to mobilize His mercy on your behalf.

Your Crying Out to God Journal

1. Why do you think it is so hard for us to admit to God that we can’t survive without Christ?

2. If you were to write a Psalm 72 or 73 (Psalms of crying out to God), how would it sound? What would you write?

3. Do you believe that God collects your tears (Psalm 56:8)? How can you apply this verse to your pain? 

4. Psalm 34:17-18 teaches that God’s good heart goes out especially to the humble needy. How could you apply this truth in your life now?

Join the Conversation

Which of the interactions/questions/reflections most resonate with you?

Tags: God's Healing for Life's Losses, Grief, Healing, Suffering