I’ve talked with thousands of people who have been in crisis of one form or another. I’ve walked through the grief process with friends who have lost babies, born and unborn, husbands, children and parents. So it’s not like I live in a bubble. But something was rocked and broken. Jody was gone and not coming back, and I was left in the rubble, numb and limp. I was personally forced to live in a new place, where death is real and can happen any time and anywhere…to ones I love. It just seemed so unfair. That made me angry, too.

I wondered about the plane crash. How could it have happened? Did Duane have a heart attack? Did the engine malfunction? This all made me angry at a loss that could not be recovered. Somehow violent death had a more preventable feel to it than a stroke or cancer would have. That was my experience.

I took me almost a year before I had the emotional strength to listen to “our songs.” I tried a number of times to listen to melodies we sang for years together, but I’d collapse in a pile of tears. But I knew that music had return to my life to water my soul and bring much needed comfort.

Fernando Ortega, a song-writer and singer was a favorite of both Jody’s and mine, put much of my feelings in a song he wrote, entitled “Now That You Are Gone”. The refrain made me weep: “Sometimes I still think I will see you in New York, and we’ll meet on the platform of the train, and with your great leaning stride you’ll cross back to my side, and my old life will be my life again.”

I folded in tears. I fiercely wanted my old life back.

In time, I reintroduced music—our music—to my life. I don’t cry any more, no long breakdown. In a way I did not expect, the music became a comfort, something I could participate in, and remember the years we enjoyed.

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Grief is the price we pay for love. —Queen Elizabeth II

My best friend was dead. My faith was shattered. It was too much for me. I felt that I, too, was dying. I desperately needed a breakthrough—a sign, if you will, that she was safe. The thoughts of her being smashed against a mountain in her own private plane just had to be changed. It just had to be.

I would wait seven months for such a healing connection. Let me walk you through the events that led up to the breakthrough.

For nearly a decade, Jody and I read through the Bible each year together. We’d read it out loud when we were together on our trips, and we’d talk about what we were learning over the phone. The day of her death in a tragic plane crash, we’d been reading Psalm 23.

For months after Jody died, I returned again and again to this beloved song in the Old Testament. God used the words to soothe my broken heart. Many people want to blame God for the mishaps of their lives. Maybe you are one who has. I definitely have. I hope that as you journey with me through a small part of the spiritual dimension of my own healing, it will help you see God differently.

Psalm 23—Jody’s and my favorite chapter in the whole Bible—was the means God used more than anything else to bring me to a place of healing through my painful struggle to recover from the loss of my dear friend. Verse by verse, day by day, he showed me his love and care and nearness, and I found myself personalizing each phrase and paraphrasing it, writing it in words that were mine and yet seemed to be his. I will only share from verses 1 and 2.

Verse 1: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

My own paraphrase of verse 1: The King of kings and Lord of lords is my very own shepherd—the one who holds my hand and takes full responsibility for me. So, believe it or not, I have need for nothing. I just love that!

I had to believe this by faith for many months, for I certainly didn’t feel it. It is very normal to doubt when the bottom falls out of life. God did not feel to me like a good shepherd that January day when news came that Jody was dead. How could he do this to me? Why would he do this to me? None of my questions had satisfying answers. I had to lean into the truth of God’s word and believe, whether it felt true or not. I had seen him take me through hard times before. I had seen him bring me through to the other side, changed, stronger in my faith, and more deeply in love with my God, my shepherd. I chose to believe he would do it again.

Verse 2: He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters…

My own paraphrase of verse 2: How lovingly he takes me to just the right place—a place where the grass is green and soft. He pats his hand on the spot that is best for me, and I am quick to lie down. Knowing my thirst is real, he leads me to the edge of cool water. He always knows where I need to be and what I’ll need upon arrival. His kindness overwhelms me.

I did not know it at the time, but the tragedy of losing Jody would change my life forever, and change it in some very positive ways—change the way I approach people in pain and teach me the language of sorrow. There were many days when I had to spiritually squint to see and believe that this spot was the right place for me to be. It was dark and hopeless, confusing and unrelenting.

The July following Jody’s death, I was in Colorado for ministry meetings. It was a Monday morning. I was struggling, crying as I read the Bible. I was reading Psalm 23 and sort of camped on this second verse. I was asking God to feed me and quench my deep thirst for understanding and hope. What happened next just took my breath away.

In my mind’s eye, I saw Jody’s face and her big, beautiful smile. Her head was cocked back a bit so I could see her neck where there had been two large scars from the vertebrae surgery following a car accident seven months and one day before she was killed in the plane crash. They were gone! And then she turned around and I saw her back.

In the hospital, I had seen other large scars there from the accident. I had held her head while the stitches were removed. Now she was looking over her shoulder, still smiling. The long scar down the middle of her back and the one across her hip…gone as well. There was a twinkle in her eye—and then my mind went blank. This brief moment brought immeasurable comfort and hope to me. She is whole. She is happy. And I was deeply comforted by my shepherd who helped me lie down in peace and drink from the well of his kindness.

Even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead.

—Frederick Buechner

Yes, my friend, healing connections can come when you least expect it. Watch for them.

Barbara Francis 2011

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I’m not there because I’ve broken a law or violated probation. I visit the barb wired facility to bring hope into a very dark place. It’s part of my healing process after losing my best friend six years ago in a plane crash. Hopelessness is the unwanted companion I share with the jail’s residents. We have something in common.

Jail sucks the light right out of the 120 female inmates. I, too, sat in darkness for years after the unexpected death of my friend Jody. The inmates think life over; joy is only a distant memory. I get that. Loss has its ways. Emptiness and sleeplessness—they are its escorts.

I tell my story to my new friends at the jail, and they tell me theirs. We laugh, we cry, we celebrate when someone is at last free to leave, and we grieve when someone returns again. But most of our time is spent exploring ways they can make life-long changes that will keep them out of this hell-hole forever.

For me and my inmates, that turns the conversation toward God. In the jail I visit, women can sign up for a Bible study I teach on Wednesdays, where we look at the many women in the Bible who made some pretty tragic decisions, only to find full forgiveness in a relationship with God.

I’ve written a book on that topic entitled Following Him When I Can’t See the End of the Road. It’s brought me great delight and personal healing to give a copy to each of the women. The book I wrote after the loss of Jody, Unexpected Turns: Leaning into the Losses of Life, I’m not allowed to give out because it’s a hard-cover book and thus a potential weapon. So I had my latest book, Grace & Guts: What It Takes to Forgive, published in a soft cover so I can give it out the day before Thanksgiving.

To give books of hope to women caught in dark places brings me unspeakable joy. One woman stands out in my mind. I’ll call her Doris. She joined my small group one Wednesday but could not look me in the eyes. She stared at the floor and shook her head. At the end of our study, I sat down next to her, so close we touched, because I wanted her to know that I loved her.

I asked her to tell me her story. With tears of shame and regret streaming down her pale cheeks, she said, “I am 70 years old and in jail! I am so humiliated and embarrassed.” I took her by the hand and told her I understood a bit of her sadness. I spoke to her of the hope I’d found after Jody was killed by talking to others about my feelings.

That’s all it took for her to open up. It wasn’t easy, but she told me afterwards it was exactly what she’d needed. I shall give Doris a copy of Grace & Guts this week to help her on the long journey to forgiving herself.

When I tell my inmates the whole story of my loss or of the places where I’ve failed and am in need of forgiveness, I can see them connect. I tell them the same thing each week: However great your loss or misdeed, it can be woven into the story of your life and used to help others in a worse place than you. In time, with that perspective, we all find healing—both the inmates and me.

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This book is not for those ultra-pious Christians who declare that of course we must forgive those who’ve hurt us because that’s what we’re called to do, period, so do it already. It’s not for those who don’t, or won’t, acknowledge the struggles inherent in being human, even a person who, with all her or his heart, aches to do what is right.

It’s not for anyone who is unwilling to admit that there are moments in life, even seasons in life, when feelings and thoughts of vengeance, anger, enmity, bitterness, or resentment have their way with us, even for those of us who strive to follow the most elegant and extravagant forgiver of all time, Jesus.

No, for me, the issue of forgiveness is sorely personal. It is the source of a profound degree of pain, anguish, struggle, and failure in my life.

Although forgiveness is the thickest of the threads that make up the cords of my Christian faith, I have wondered how I could possibly begin to talk to others about embracing, extending, and personalizing forgiveness when I still deal with bouts of revenge and retaliation myself.

I have known the bitter taste of unforgiveness for as long as I can remember. So, Grace & Guts is for those who admit they wrestle with unforgiveness on a daily (hourly? minute-by-minute?) basis.

It is for those of us who have been left bleeding, embittered, and in desperate need of liberation from the prison that unforgiveness inevitably erects around our hearts and souls.

It is for those courageous enough to understand that they will never make genuine progress by pretending that what happened didn’t happen, or by clinging to some hope that the pain will go away if we ignore it long enough.

Not long ago, a Gallup poll indicated that 94 percent of Americans believe forgiveness is a substantive issue in their lives, and 85 percent say they need help with how to go about it.

How can we forgive injustices committed against us? How can we forgive people who have wronged us and wounded us?

There is a part of me that doesn’t believe they should get away with it. There is a part of me that wants them to pay for what they have done. And if I am honest — and I promise you I am going to be — I must call this for what it is. There is something inside me that wishes for retribution and even revenge. In some corner of my heart, the idea of forgiving is all too foreign.

Yet, deeper within, I also know unforgiveness is a poison to the soul that gradually and surreptitiously drains me of the abundance I could have in life.

How on God’s earth can we be forgiven? That is an issue any book on forgiveness must address, and, in my experience, going there requires the two qualities for which Grace & Guts is named.

Dr. Lewis Smedes gets it right when he says, “Forgiveness is God’s invention for coming to terms with a world in which, despite their best intentions, people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And he invites us all to forgive each other.”

A  dynamic Bible teacher, Barbara Francis makes the scriptures come alive and excels at relating biblical principles to everyday living. She loves helping people find hope. Visit her new blog, www.graceandguts.net.

The post Does Grief End? It Takes Grace and Guts to Forgive appeared first on Open to Hope.

We all need to be asking God to enlarge our hearts to himself and to others and to increase our trust that he will work in his way in his time. We must not insist that God do things our way, and we can only humbly bow before the fact that we do not understand all his ways and leave the results to him. Sometimes it may be difficult to see what God is doing when it looks like he’s not doing anything especially with rebellious, sick, or sinful people, or when those we love take stupid or ignorant detours from the straight and narrow. But he is always present to our prayers for our chief prayer burdens, the person hardest on our hearts, and the seemingly most-resistant situation. -Sylvia Gunter

Troubled times are fresh opportunities to see God work in our lives.

A family member may have died. Our home may be jeopardy because of economic reversals. Our retirement and college funds seem to evaporate before our eyes.

And we ask,  God, where are you in it all?  Friend, he is right in the middle of your life, holding you up in ways you perhaps cannot see right now. Please, be comforted and reminded:  God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble  (Psalm 46:1).

The Psalms are a place I go when the bottom falls out of my life. There is something about the raw honesty that attracts me to them when I have run out of faith. David and the other writers give words to my worries and fears and remind me of the One I can truly trust.

Troubled times are not only fresh opportunities to see God work in our lives, they are also times when the enemy of our soul wants to come with lies, half-truths, and condemnations. Have you felt his attack and flaming arrows lately?  I have! This month has been a dark one for me foggy thinking, loss of motivation, and wondering if God is even using me anymore.

So, what’s a person to do in such a season as this? Listen to praise music. Let someone else praise God on your behalf when your tongue is sticking to the roof of your mouth. Tell a trusted friend about the quagmire you’re in and then have them pray for you. That’s what I did yesterday and today — had people pray over me.

They didn’t have to fix my problems but I did want them to understand my struggle. And, I must admit, the fog has lifted. How kind of God.

A dynamic Bible teacher, Barbara Francis makes the scriptures come alive and excels at relating biblical principles to everyday living. She loves helping people find hope by bringing Jesus into their actual lives, not the ones they wish they had. She is honest with her audience, encouraging them to be honest with themselves. Using humor and personal stories, she makes listeners feel as if she has read their personal journals or is speaking just to them. Barbara possesses the unique ability to speak truth and grace into people?s lives, no matter where the individuals are in their spiritual journeys.

Books by Barbara Francis include Unexpected Turns: Leaning into the Losses of Life and Following Him When I Can’t See the End of the Road. She has also written three Bible study guides, An Invitation to Eavesdrop: Finding Yourself in the Psalms; Private Conversations: Reflections on the Prayer Life of Jesus; and Following Him When I Can’t See the End of the Road: A Personal Study Guide, all of which are available by contacting the author.

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Death of a loved one is an amputation. I fear the loss of memory. No photograph can truly recall the beloved’s smile. Occasionally, a glimpse of someone walking down the street, someone alive, moving, in action, will hit with a pang of genuine recollection. But our memories, precious as they are, still are like sieves, and the memories inevitably leak through. — Madeleine L’Engle

Jody, my best friend for 20 years, was gone, the most unexpected turn in my nearly fifty years of living. I was left to grieve. And I discovered that grief had a way of morphing. Grief did not look or feel the same from moment to moment or day to day. I cried constantly despite my efforts not to. I felt mentally numb. And I battled for my faith.

I was in full-time ministry. I should have been fine. I knew where Jody was-in heaven. I’d see her again. She was fully whole now and would never even want to come back. I knew these things. I had taught and believed them for years. I should have been fine. But I was not fine and found it hard to imagine I would ever be fine again. Life lost all its color, all its laughter. Everything seemed bleak shades of grey and black. Hopeless. Vague. “Loss strips us of the props we rely on for our well-being. It knocks us off our feet and puts us on our backs. In the experience of loss, we come to the end of ourselves.” Indeed.

In the weeks and months that passed I gradually came to realize I could not/would not abandon the God who had loved me, forgiven me, and comforted me for over thirty years. I knew him too well. I cherished our relationship too much to throw it away like the flower arrangements that faded with age. I read books on grief and talked with others who were at different places in the grief process, all of whom helped me realize the importance of faith. I learned that mine was not a perfect faith, but it was one that would prevail.

The battle was difficult and the lessons hard to articulate. But I will try to share what I’ve learned with you.

Tragedy and loss can never be fully anticipated. I was not prepared for my loss then, and I will never be prepared for future losses. I am simply not the same as I was when Jody was alive. There is a hole in life-the place Jody occupied-that will always be hollow and void. I wasn’t finished doing life with her. I wish she were still here. My soul, however, has grown in the process.

I have had to learn to live with the principle I call co-existence. I have come to grips with the reality that loss and life, sorrow and joy, emptiness and hope live side-by-side with me now. All these things co-exist.

The unseen, eternal things mean more to me now. God is simply more a part of my life. I’ve been forced to grapple with his love and his goodness in light of my great loss. “Jody? You took Jody? You gave Jody and me this remarkable friendship. Why would you take it away?”

I’ve had to completely rethink God’s sovereignty. “Couldn’t you just have put your finger under that plane? It only missed getting over that mountain by a hundred feet! You did that kind of miracle in Idaho, why not in Arizona?” I have learned that not all of my questions will be answered and that the greatest tribute to my friend is to go on living full-on, full-out for God. It’s exactly what she would have wanted. Of this I am certain. He has been my Guide and my Captain, and he will take me through this great loss as well.

Copyright 2008 by Barbara Francis

Barbara Francis is the author of Unexpected Turns: Leaning into the Losses of Life (Expert Publishing, Inc., 2007), and publishes three monthly inspirational newsletters, Embraced, Devoted to Prayer and Prayer Page. For more information, please visit http://www.barbarafrancis.com/.

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