Day 91 - Remedy for Loneliness: Reach Out

365 daily emails to help you through the grieving process Grief support groups: Click here to find a GriefShare group near you. If you would like to find a group for a friend or relative, try our Search Page. Want to read ahead or resend a previous daily email? Click Here Remedy for Loneliness: Reach Out Day 91 One of the most effective ways to come out of loneliness is to reach out to others who are hurting or in need. Even if you don't feel like reaching out, discipline yourself to do it anyway. Dr. Ray Pritchard says, "There comes a time when you have to wipe the tears away. There comes a time when you have to stop thinking about what you have lost and start thinking about the needs of the people around you. "I don't say that's easy. I don't think that you can always do that overnight. For some people it will be after a period of weeks, for some after a period of months. For me it was a year after my father died. "It might be as simple as baking cookies for the neighbors, going to visit the hospital, going to the nursing home. It might be as simple as writing letters to others who have also lost loved ones and sharing with others what God has given you. There is an amazing therapeutic value in not only telling your own story, but in pointing people back to God." To escape loneliness and despair, you must take action and reach out to others, and you will experience the light of hope rising up in your life. "If you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness, and your gloom will become like midday" (Isaiah 58:10 NASB). O Lord, loneliness and despair have weighed me down for too long. I want to reach out to others and experience Your hope and Your light. Amen. Through a Season of Grief The daily email messages you are receiving are also available in a book format. Purchase as a gift for a friend or buy a print copy for yourself. Through a Season of Grief by Bill Dunn and Kathy Leonard is available at online and local bookstores or at griefshare.org/devotional. If you would like to recommend these daily emails to a friend, please click here and choose one of the options under Share. For more information about GriefShare, including how to sign up for these daily emails, please click here. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2003-2013 by The Church Initiative, Inc., All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without explicit permission in writing from Church Initiative. You subscribed to this daily email through www.griefshare.org. We value your privacy! We will never give, sell, rent, or otherwise share your email or personal information with any other organization — EVER. To remove this email address from further mailings Click Here while connected to the internet. If you have any problems or concerns, please contact dailyemailsupport@griefshare.org. GriefShare 250 S. Allen Rd. Wake Forest, NC 27587 (800) 395-5755