Day 48 - Grieving Before the Loss

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 Grieving Before the Loss Day 48 When a person you love is sick or suffering, you begin to grieve before the actual loss. In some cases you may think that most of your grieving is already done. But despite your preparations, the grief that occurs after a person's death goes beyond all your expectations. Dr. Jim Conway lost his wife after a long battle with cancer. He says, "Sally got sick in 1990, and we talked frankly. She went through repeated surgeries, radiation, and chemo over the next seven years. I thought that because we had talked so much that there would be no grief. I really thought that I had resolved all that. "But it is not like that at all. It was like looking at a video about jumping out of an airplane, free-falling, and finally your parachute opens. All of the previous stuff was just preparatory information, but it was not actually going out of the plane; it was not experiencing grief. "When Sally died, it was as if somebody pushed me out of the plane, and now I am free-falling—this is what grief is like. You are in free fall. You wonder if the parachute is ever going to open. You wonder if you're going to hit the ground at 120 miles per hour." Only You, Almighty God, can keep me from falling. I turn to You, believing Your promise: "To him who is able to keep [me] from falling and to present [me] before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen" (Jude 24-25). 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. Don't want these daily emails? Unsubscribe. If you have any problems or concerns, please contact dailyemailsupport@griefshare.org. GriefShare 250 S. Allen Rd. Wake Forest, NC 27587 (800) 395-5755