Grief is a funny thing. Rarely ha-ha funny but sometimes so ridiculous that you just have to laugh/cry. It’s often strange as you behave in ways you wouldn’t normally, struggle with things that have never given you trouble before, feel down at times and much of the time feel slightly out of step with the world and the people in it.

We are all different and so grief for each of us is different and each time we grieve is different. But there are a recognised range of stages that you may go through but not in any predictable order. One of the things I’ve found really helpful is finding someone slightly ahead of me on the road laughing and saying “I remember feeling like that – it’s OK that’s normal. Don’t worry about it.”

Quite a lot of us in Ignite have experienced grief – a lot in the last couple of years but also some much longer ago. I have been wondering if there is any way we could usefully come together to share our experiences and support each other. As I was tossing this around, I came across a program on the internet called Griefshare. Now I am naturally very wary of stuff on the internet but in this case within a couple of weeks, I met a friend who excitedly told me about a course that her church in Greystones was following called Griefshare. The co(God)-incidence prodded me to look at it harder.

I met up with another friend of mine who unbeknownst to me was actually leading the course in Greystones and heard about the adjustments they had made to make it work for them. Despite these she was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. One of her stories that stuck was that one man who had been particularly helped by the course had had a stillborn daughter 15 years before and had never grieved for her properly. He’d just buried his grief deep within himself as he buried her.

So, what do you think? Would you have any interest in trying this out? Is there anyone else you know (not necessarily within Ignite) who might benefit from having a space to think about their grief? It won’t be counselling – just a group of friends trying to help each other as they share life together. The format will be watching a DVD and then a time of sharing / discussion. There’ll be absolutely no pressure to contribute. The course is Christian based and lasts between 10-13 weeks.

There a promotional video from Griefshare that you might like to look at https://vimeo.com/99658548

If you’d like to hear more about this, give me or B a shout and I’ll see if we can get something going in the autumn.

 

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