Healing for the Holidays: Part Three—Q and A About Holiday Honesty

Note: This is the third in a series of posts on Healing for the Holidays. Read Part One: A Promise. Read Part Two: Give Sorrow Words.

I appreciate friendships that are secure enough for “push-back.” Someone who lovingly says, “Bob, I get what you’re saying, but what about…?” Today, I want to give voice to four possible “push-backs” on Part Two: Give Sorrow Words. Consider these as Q/A about just how honest should we be around the holidays.

Push-Back # 1: “But Doesn’t Everyone Handle Grief Differently?”

Absolutely. Everyone handles grief differently. There’s no one typical response to grief, and there’s no one universally “correct” path toward healing for the holidays. Healing is a journey—a personal journey with God and we all take unique twists and turns on our journey.

Your timing will be different from mine. Your way will be different from your relatives. We can’t force anyone else, or even ourselves, onto a certain timetable or a one-size-fits-all plan.

That said, good research and caring engagement with people consistently shows that “denial” is a very common initial response to grief. And initially, it can even be a grace of God that allows our minds and bodies to slow down long enough to survive the horrors of our loss.

Push-Back to the Push-Back: Faith Faces All of Life Honestly

Good biblical study reveals a clear pattern (not a universal command)—faith faces all of life honestly. That’s what candor is—a faithful facing of life courageously and honestly. On your journey of healing for the holidays, at least be aware that being honest with yourself (candor) is one signpost on your journey that you’ll want to zig and zag toward.

Push-Back #2: “But Not Everyone Is a Talker!”

It’s absolutely true that God uniquely designed everyone one of us—we are each fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). Our different personalities, different backgrounds, different upbringings, different settings, different choices, and different loses all combine to make us unique.

So no one should ever feel, “I need to talk about this X amount.” Or, “I need to talk about this like Suzy does.” Nope.

Push-Back to the Push-Back: Everyone Needs Relationship

Good biblical study reveals that God designed us to relate to Himself, to others, and to ourselves. We need relationship. In a sense, you could picture denial as a refusal to relate honestly to your own self.

Notice something about the passage we probed yesterday (Psalm 42:3-5). David starts by talking to himself! “Why are you downcast, O my soul?”

Candor doesn’t mean you have to blurt out your deepest, darkest secrets to every stranger who walks down the street. It does mean that you would be wise to start by talking to yourself.

Allow yourself to feel what you feel. Then put words to your feeling. That’s candor.

Like David, many people (not all) find that capturing their thoughts on paper can be very helpful. We might call it “journaling.” I like to call it “psalming.” Write your own psalm of candor about your holiday hurt.

Of course, in your uniqueness, maybe you’re not a writer. So what song conveys the feelings of your heart? Or what picture, image, or artwork conveys the ache in your soul? What movie scene captures your pain?

Push-Back # 3: “But People Are Clueless How to Relate to Me!”

Yep. Many times this is so true. And it’s one of the reasons we’re hesitant to be candid with others about our hurting during the holidays. Many people don’t know what to do after the hug.

And, there’s the biblical principle of not casting your pearls before swine. So, some people are so obtuse, so lacking in empathy, that it just may be unwise to share much, if anything, with them.

Push-Back to the Push-Back: Find at Least One Faithful Friend

Good biblical study reveals that God designed the Body of Christ to comfort one another (2 Corinthians 1:3-9). Pray that God will give you at least one faithful friend who knows what to do after the hug. In your timing, slowly open up to your spiritual friend about your emotional pain. Others find that a recovery or support group of people with a similar loss is an excellent place to start the candor journey.

Push-Back # 4: “But I Don’t Want to Be a Downer Who Ruins the Holidays for Others.”

That can be a very other-centered thought. It also could be a cop-out, but let’s assume it is rightly motivated.

Push-Back to the Push-Back: Christ-like Relating to Others

First, it’s a God-thing that you can be so thoughtful about others in the midst of your holiday hurt. That’s amazing!

Second, we’ve already said that candor is more about talking to yourself and at least one other godly, caring person. So candor doesn’t require you to interrupt the Thanksgiving meal to share your deepest hurt.

Third, in the long run, your candor now will bring healing hope for future holidays. Remember, No grieving; no healing. Know grieving; know healing.

The Rest of the Story

Healing for the holidays starts with candid honesty with ourselves, but it doesn’t stop there. I noted that God created us to relate to ourselves, to others, and to Him. Holiday healing also requires honesty with God—what the Bible calls lament—the focus of our next post. 

Join the Conversation

Which of the push-backs were running through your mind? How can you apply the push-back to the push-back?

Help for Your Healing Journey

For additional help on your healing journey, learn more about God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting. Also, visit GriefShare for information on their small group video series Surviving the Holidays.

Good Grief: A Fresh Review of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses

Note: Melinda Lancaster posted the following review of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses at her site Thinking Out Loud on Purpose.

Excerpt: “Upon receiving God’s Healing for Life’s Losses, my plan was to: read it, do a short review, and move on. God had another plan. The book “read me” and as a result exposed my misconceptions concerning God and grief. It also caused me to review, at length, my relationship with God. Taking me on an unexpected path towards healing God’s Healing for Life’s Losses has become a real game-changer. It has continued to work in my life long after I put it down.”

Full Review: Good Grief

Losses—we all experience them along with the accompanying pain. They penetrate our lives in various forms and magnitudes with little or no warning. Some are short-lived while others lead to long seasons of suffering and grief.

Suffering and grief are something we are all familiar with. Yet, these two words are NOT typically “hot topics” in most Christian circles. As a matter-of-fact they are infrequently dealt with. I find that somewhat astonishing given the fact that 1,185 of the 1,189 chapters of the Bible, in some way, touch on the subject of suffering or death.

It is also confounding to see, with so much of Scripture dedicated to the subject, how frantically we search for ways to quickly dismiss grief. Whether we downplay our pain with positive platitudes or frantically numb it with a frenzy of activities the issue remains the same. We need a framework or “theology of suffering” to deal with our pain if we are to experience God’s healing. Many believers do not have one.

A Biblical Primer

In his latest book, God’s Healing for Life’s Losses, Dr. Robert Kellemen has penned a primer for sufferology that allows for such a framework to be constructed. While walking with the reader down the path of grief, which Kellemen is deeply and personally acquainted with, he offers something that has been sadly lacking–a Biblical approach that goes far beyond the traditional model. By going “the way of the Word”, instead of the way of the world, this small but power-packed book gives the readers permission to grieve freely, in a biblical manner, while providing the necessary tools.

I was not at all surprised by the author’s ability to bring spiritual light to this subject but I must say that I was amazed by the masterful way in which he so carefully and compassionately unpacked the eight biblical steps or markers on the road to healing. With the precision of a surgeon he cuts to the “heart of the matter” removing infected notions and cancerous beliefs so that real healing can occur.

The Book “Read Me”

How do I know this? I experienced it personally. I must say, that I was not prepared for the impact that God’s Healing for Life’s Losses would have on my life. No stranger to loss, over the past few years, I’ve encountered grief of my own. I thought that I was handling it when in fact I was hiding from it. That is until the opportunity to review my friend’s book came along.

Upon receiving it, my plan was to: read it, do a short review, and move on. God had another plan. The book “read me” and as a result exposed my misconceptions concerning God and grief. It also caused me to review, at length, my relationship with God. Taking me on an unexpected path towards healing God’s Healing for Life’s Losses has become a real game-changer. It has continued to work in my life long after I put it down.

Handling Grief Biblically

Having studied the subjects of suffering, grief, and loss over the years I’ve read countless books by an array of Christian writers and God’s Healing for Life’s Losses has surpassed them all. It is by far the most condensed and concise book on handling grief in a biblical manner that I’ve ever read. In my opinion it is also the most helpful.

I look forward to using it as a ministry tool and highly recommend it as a gift to all who are experiencing a loss of any kind. There is no way to adequately convey how much spiritual help is packed inside, but if you read it I believe that you too will be amazed!

Join the Conversation

What books have changed your life?

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?

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?

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?

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