In this episode, CCEF faculty discuss the complex nature of lingering grief, exploring how it manifests in various ways. They share personal stories and insights on how grief can resurface during life milestones. They emphasize the importance of community support in navigating grief, as well as the need for patience and understanding in the grieving process. Ultimately, listeners will be reminded of God's presence and care during times of grief.

00:00 Introduction
01:02 Ways That Grief Can Linger
08:34 Personal Examples of Grief
15:57 Examples of Caring Well for Grieving People
23:00 Navigating Grief with Ongoing Responsibilities
30:14 The Role of Church Community
36:33 Bringing Each Other to Jesus in Grief

Hello and welcome to our CCEF podcast, Where Life & Scripture Meet. I'm Gunner Gundersen, the dean of faculty and a faculty member at CCEF. And I'm here with my colleagues, Darby Strickland and Esther Liu, faculty members as well with CCEF. And as we get started, I would just love to offer to you something and share an opportunity with you. We just recently held our annual national conference last month. We got to gather with over 2,000 of God's people to really consider what we could learn together from the apostle Paul's life and his ministry. And that conference audio is now available for purchase. And if you do decide to purchase this, you'll receive 27 audio sessions that you can listen to anywhere and anytime. If you'd like to, you can learn more and purchase these at ccef.org/2025. That's ccef.org/2025.

Our topic for today is one that some might immediately identify with. And I honestly think that some who are listening might realize through this that it's either what you or someone that you care about is actually dealing with in ways that might be a little more evident or might be a little bit under the radar. And our hope is just to be helpful and to reflect on something that we all face at various points in life. And our topic for today is grief that lingers, grief that lingers. As we begin thinking about this, could we share a little bit in answer to the question, just what are some ways that grief can linger? What are some maybe evidences or manifestations of a lingering grief that's just hanging around and continues to impact us, even if it might not be what we're calling it or what we're realizing it is?

I think of a friend of mine who lost both her parents several years apart, but in the same season of the year and even a decade, 15 years out, at a certain time of year, she just gets a little, she's just sad and depressed and a little crabby. And she'll say, I just don't know why I, why I've been down. And I'll say, well remember what season this is. Oh yes. Like it kind of just catches up with her, like we're heading into that season where we're approaching my parents' birthdays and the day that they passed away. And so it kind of catches her off guard just seasonally. She just feels it somehow. And just knowing her and just reminding her, you know, just immediately she's like, yep, that's exactly what this is. Just that sense of, I’m heading into this sad season of just remembering really hard things, even on the birthdays.

Yeah. I certainly appreciate people who are going through significant loss and thinking that they would feel more relief from that grief sooner, faster, and yet day in day out, they still feel dragged down by missing what was lost, feeling sadness over it, crying over it, and the persistence of it and the ways that it doesn't seem to lift, it doesn't seem to be getting better with time sometimes even, can be discouraging or just disorienting of what's going on, what's wrong with me, how come I'm not feeling better. So I know that there are people who… their suffering of loss just doesn't seem to follow the timeline that they expected and the emotions feel fresh. The physical weakness and exhaustion of grief doesn't seem to relent either. So it's just disorienting and unsettling to see it gnaw at them day in and day out in a persisting way.

Several of my counselees were even told, you know, once you get through that first year, you'll have gone through all the firsts without them, the things will get better. And that's often not the case, right? But then they have this guilty feeling like, why is it taking me so long? Or this is what people said. And yeah, I just feel like there's something, there's so much shame attached to the fact that they still walk in the church door with tears in their eyes, or they still are really dreading Christmas this year. And it's hard that some timeline has been placed upon their heart that's just not realistic.

What are some maybe additional reasons why there might be this internal clock of expectation, this internal timeline that we have or develop for how long grief ought to last or what it should look like in particular seasons almost as it develops. Or I think the assumption is as it subsides, it's going to subside and not only will it subside, this will be the track you can expect to kind of go down the journey that you're going to be on. What do you think are some reasons why there might be some of those expectations, whether they be communal expectations or just individualized expectations that we might have?

Darby alluded to this earlier. There's kind of a way in which some platitudes can emerge of timelines for grief. Like, oh, within the first year, once you experience all the firsts, which could be true for some people and it could actually be helpful for some people, but it's not always the case. And I think that's the danger of it. But I also know that there are other timelines that kind of exist or expectations of, I don't know. When I was in college, I would hear the time to, the timeframe to get over a breakup is half the amount of time that you guys were actually together, something along those lines. If you were together for a year, then expect that it'll take six months to get over that relationship or whatever that is. I feel like there are a lot of sayings and theories out there that emerge. I don't know exactly where they came from, but I also feel like there can be ways in which people unintentionally, maybe well-meaning, but unintentionally impose their own timelines onto other people. So if they went through a similar experience and it took them X amount of time, it can be tempting out of a desire to maybe even comfort them or say there's light at the end of the tunnel, say, hey, it took me this amount of time. So maybe expect that it'll take this amount of time for you as well. But sometimes in ways that actually end up being unhelpful or create expectations that aren't the journey and the timeframe that God has in mind for your particular grief journey. So I actually don't know the answer to that. I feel like those are just some theories floating around in my mind of maybe where some of those things come from, but there's probably way more than that going on, not sure.

I think as well people feel ashamed of bringing their sadness into their relationships and their community. You know, being the sad person in the room, you just sense that other people are carrying that sadness with you, as well they should, but you somehow feel bad, right? I don't want to be the one who's down. I need to be, you know, in this frame of mind because I don't want to, yeah, burden, be a burden to people any longer. So sometimes it's just this wrong desire. I call it a wrong desire as if, you know, you have to set a mood for your friendships or relationships. So there's pressure people put on themselves to feel better. Instead of just recognizing, no, when you've loved somebody well, you know, grief is an expression of a deep love, and it's okay that that's going to take time. And just to kind of help lift that shame or help them brainstorm ways to be in community and not be so focused on how they're so different than everyone else around them.

Could we share maybe some specific illustrations, just vignettes of ways that grief can just pop up, ways that it shows up, and those could be from our own personal lives, from the ministries that we've sought to have with others, things we've observed when it comes to maybe friendships with those who are grieving. What are some of those ways? Because I mean, there are just hundreds of ways that grief can pop up in these really nuanced, surprising, sometimes predictable but often surprising ways at seemingly random times, although sometimes they seem kind of predictable or as you shared, Darby, seasonal, that come and they go. What are some of those illustrations that we can face?

The two types of stories I hear the most are something happens in a person's life whose experienced loss, whether it's six months, a year, or five, and they pick up the phone wanting to call the person and to tell them. They're like, oh yeah, they're not there. The other one is when they're shopping, whether it's grocery shopping and they go to grab ice cream, they're like, oh I want to get so-and-so's favorite ice cream. Or they see something, right? I think that's just surprising that they're still in-tuned with wanting to care or connect. Even when great amount of time has passed. That I hear quite a bit.

It's interesting how life milestones can prompt a fresh wave of grief. To your point, Darby, I remember, I mean, at CCEF, we had our former executive director, David Powlison, died in 2019 while he was still executive director at CCEF. And even to this day, when there are happy things that happen, something exciting at work or, it's like, oh, I became a faculty member. I was his assistant when he was the director. I do have that moment where I'm like, oh, I'd love to share this with David. Like, he'd be so excited for me. He'd be so happy. And I'm like, he's not there anymore. And so it's interesting how hitting life milestones, kind of having this, I would love to tell this person, they would be so excited for me, or they would be there for me through the sadness, and then realizing that that no longer is, can be really, really sad in that moment. And I also think of, yeah, just different life stages bring about new ways of grieving. There's a way, um, I know I mentioned in a previous episode, but I've mentioned before my dad passed away when I was eleven, and there's a way that I grieved his loss when I was eleven, but it hit again when I was later in my teenage years and I grieved his death in a new way at that point in life. And there's another way that I'm grieving it in this season of life, in my thirties. And so there's a way in which sometimes it needs to wrap around and a grief that you thought, oh, I thought I was over it by now, it has a way of revisiting, resurfacing in different life stages, different milestones, etc., that somehow prompt a new season or iteration of grief. That doesn't mean I didn't properly grieve it in the past, but that's kind of how grief works sometimes. It's iterative and a process.

Yeah, I think losses take on a different meaning over time. That's what you're saying, Esther. And I just think that's something that's so important for us to recognize that those losses will always have meaning or there'll always be an impact on that loss as our lives are changing and we become aware of different things. Yeah, just to be aware of that, I think sets you up to recognize it's okay to continue to process, to talk about, to wrestle with what this means.

It's so helpful to hear you reflect, Esther, on how grief might not subside and it might not just continue either, but that it morphs, it develops, it can come and it can go and it can show up in different ways in different seasons, some of which will consciously make sense and will be understandable. And then some which will seem pretty indecipherable as to why this is hitting me now or in this way. I think of watching my wife go through the loss of both her dad a few years ago when her brother last year and the overwhelming nature of grief and then the sense of helplessness for me watching that and grieving along with her, but knowing that there is nothing I can do to make up for that loss or to reverse it in any way and the effect that that has on walking through that together. It's just very significant. And as you said, there's things that then begin to happen as we go forward in life where that grief is exacerbated or it stands out in different ways. One of the hard things for me has been this sense that, you know, for us, it's like your entire life changes, but you get out on the highway driving your car and everybody's going just as fast. Life keeps going. It feels like your life comes to a grinding halt and all of these things are kind of imploded, it feels like, but then the world is moving on. And I know so many people that I've talked to as a pastor or in counseling, there's that sense of something, someone so significant, central, intertwined in my life is no longer here.

And yet really quickly after certain things pass for others, it's just the world has moved on.

And not only are you losing the person, but you're losing often so many other tangential things, right? I think of many widows who are no longer invited out for dinners with couples or their income has changed. They might have to relocate. Young widows who now are raising children and they have to go back to work. Or I think of parents who've lost children and they're seeing other children hit milestones and they're not on soccer games on Saturday anymore. So it's not that there's just one loss. There's really concentric circles of loss. And most people on the outside fail to see all the implications that one loss can have in a person's life. But the person living it is very aware of how much has changed.

How do you guys think we care for others well? And how do we help support others and serve them by trying to see more of what they've lost? Is that a fair question? Is that something that's wise to try to do? And if so, what's the best way to do that? And I don't mean in some way that suggests that we're going to solve it or that we're going to provide some replacement for what they've lost, but how do we access some of those experiences that people are having in this grief that lingers?

I'll share something that was a game changer for me that I was a recipient of in a season of grief. And that was a friend who was willing to listen over the long haul. And as new things surfaced for me of different dimensions of loss in one loss, it took some time to, it took some time for me to realize maybe what some of those concentric circles were. And maybe the first week it was this and then one month in, I realized, wait, this is part of this package, etc. And truly what was the biggest grace to me in that season is to have a friend who is so patient with me and was always willing to lend a listening ear in the midst of it. Even when I was rushing myself, feeling like I should be further along in my grief, they continued to kind of hold out space and permission of, you might be in a rush, but I'm not in a rush and I'm going to stand by your side and be here for you, not only to listen, but to pray with and for me throughout the course of years of trying to work through a grief that I was enduring. Yeah, I'll never be able to replace that kind of love.

I think that's something that people are often hesitant, they're hesitant to bring up hard things as if you're going to remind somebody of their sorrow. But chances are that person already is thinking about their hardest things. And so I think it's just such a grace to ask, how are you doing? What's this been like? What was this week like? What was particularly difficult this week, you know, given the loss of so-and-so? I think we are afraid to ask. And I’ve just seen some of the people that I've seen grieve the best have been free to talk about the good in the person that's gone, the hard that they're experiencing now, and it just becomes a regular pattern in their conversation because it is something they're regularly encountering in their heart. But to have it in the world, in community, in friendships has just been really restorative.

You know, I followed a pastor who had a lot, a lot, a lot more experience than me. And I stepped in and I remember the first time I was kind of leading a conversation with a family who had just lost kind of a parent/grandparent, and we were sitting on their back patio and starting to talk together with kind of several generations of the family about the service. And typically this man who had been my predecessor but was now my co-pastor would be doing this ministry and working with families and serving them in that way. This time we were doing it together and I was leading the conversation and tried to express kindness and condolences toward them and talk for a little bit. And then I said, why don't we go ahead and start talking about the service, which was coming up. And I just had this nervousness and desire to make sure that these things were taken care of. And in a very gracious way, when there was a pause, he just said, I'll never forget it, he said, you know what, we do want to get to that. I found the service will kind of plan itself. I'd love to hear about your loved one. And it led to this beautiful conversation. I can picture myself there right now, the weather, the seat I was in, the children, the children-in-law, the grandchildren, and just this wide-ranging conversation filled with laughter and with tears and with memories and legacy and spiritual lessons learned. And I just remember in that moment learning how important it was for people to have the opportunity to talk openly and together about a person or about a loss or about love, about family, about grief. And it was just a great reminder to me in the midst of the feeling that I needed to do something kind of tactical and logistical to get something set up that he completely understood the much greater priority there. And that example that he showed me has I think really served me well, to just slow down not only in those initial moments, but in weeks, months, years, you know, that follow to seek to be that kind of friend, pastor, counselor, whatever the case might be. He just knew, we need to prioritize talking and sharing and being together.

I think that's exactly what stops happening when people feel I should be over this by now. They stop doing what they need the most and that's to talk about what's going on. Not to hide that, but to actually highlight it for people in their world and even in their conversations with the Lord. It's to really talk, continue speaking.

There's also a lot of thoughtfulness when there are people who remember some of those anniversaries or some of those moments that might resurface grief, the people who aren't just there when the loss first happens. It seems like sometimes when the loss initially happens, there can be a lot of people who surround you with love and checking in and meals and all these things to sustain. And that is such a grace in that moment. Some of those people who still remember though, a year out, two years out, who will check in on those anniversaries when, like you said, Gunner, like a lot of life has already moved on and people have moved on in significant ways. Those who remember, I feel like that goes a long way to bring comfort and, again, permission for the griever to continue speaking and sharing and being on their journey of reckoning with this painful loss in their life.

In many situations, although we've talked significantly here about, let's say, the loss of a person that we don't gain back in this life, there's also other situations where there's a sense of loss, but there's also a sense of kind of ongoing responsibility that we have too, that there's this whole expenditure of energy that's needed too continue to do the things that are in front of us. I think maybe of someone that sees an aging parent slipping into dementia, for example, and that responsibility that they have is in this season even increasing in terms of how they need to care. Or perhaps a divorce where someone is now primarily responsible for children, but more on their own than they've ever been. So in addition to the grief, in addition to the loss, there's also this sometimes really significant addition of responsibility or weightier responsibilities. What are some ways that you might think through the topic of grief that lingers when there's also that dynamic of heavy responsibility, weighty things that you also have to do or care for or navigate.

I can think of a woman I counseled who lost her husband, and her children were all elementary school age. Her job that first year was to shepherd them through the loss. She didn't really have the luxury of tending to her own grief in the way that probably would have been beneficial to her. She had to keep moving, she had to keep them moving. She was catching their tears. Yeah, and just not having the luxury of slowing down, of really feeling what had happened to her. She was absorbing, managing so many other things. So she didn't really have the opportunity. And then as soon as her children began to be settled, that's when she really started to feel the grief. And it was hard for her community. They didn't understand why she was having a delayed reaction. Why 18 months later is this hitting you with such intensity? So that was… and even her own experience, she couldn't quite understand it. But when we mapped it out and we just did a timeline of everything that you had to do in the last 18 months, it really was helpful to her to see all that she was having to carry, and just now God gave her the time to grieve.

When I was a kid, we lived near the Keystone Dam in Northeast Arkansas. And I remember sometimes knowing at my house that it was raining a lot, it had been storming, and we might drive out the 10 miles or so to the dam and you could see that it just was filling and filling and filling. And yet, they couldn't yet let it out because of how full the river was actually below as well, the Arkansas River. And then eventually sometimes you'd go and all the floodgates would be open and it would just be this incredible amount of water to my eyes as an eight or ten year old to see how much was coming out at that time, often very delayed because they had needed to wait to let this water release. That's the image that came to mind, Darby, as you shared. In situations I've seen within our own family and elsewhere where, like you said, there's so much to do or to take care of or particular calling from the Lord that's very noble, it's very honorable to take care of those things, but I appreciate the phrase you used, that delayed reaction that can really surprise those around us and sometimes might surprise us ourselves. Darby, how do you advise people, and Esther, as well? How do you try to encourage people or provide any sort of support and guidance when you can sense that some of that delayed reaction is inevitable or like necessitated by the situation? What do they do in the meantime when they have to walk in that season of weighty, weighty responsibility and might not be able to get to the fullness of expressing that grief until later?

Well, ideally, that's why we'd want to see the church as a community and a body come in. Like how lovely would it have been if people in her world would have recognized that. And every Thursday night they came over to babysit so she could go to small group. That's where I think where we need others. And obviously if you're the one in that season, you don't even have the time or the energy to figure that out. But we, as people in community with them, can step in not in forceful ways, but just making suggestions, saying, you know, it's been three months, you haven't had a break, you haven't been out. Yeah, how about it? Can we set this up for you? So I think it's, yeah, other people walking alongside them can create, help create those opportunities. I think as the individual, it's pretty hard. You have no ability to be creative. So I wouldn't want to put that on somebody. But if you have the idea, this would be really helpful, ask. It's a season to ask for help.

What strikes me, Darby, is almost the principle that if we don't understand that grief as part of the natural course of things tends to linger and we assume that there is this pretty quick expiration date on it, then that short timeline that we're thinking of grief on is also the timeline for our proactive ministry. So it becomes something where my mindset towards this person as someone who's suffering and grieving, my mindset kind of expires along with whenever I think that their grief will expire. And if the reality is it can be extended so much farther out and there's many different needs that could be creatively met during that time to help them through that process, that changes the way that I kind of practice the “one anothers” towards them. It extends out my own commitment to ministry toward them.

Yeah, and I think the hard part is that requires us to see people who are different than us. Like you might be relating the loss of your grandparent, right? It's very different when someone loses a spouse and it's very different depending on what decade that loss happens in. And so, note again, it's painful to get close to people in pain, but in order for us to love them, we have to really understand, what does this particular loss look like for them? What are the implications for their life? And that requires knowing them, but asking. And I don't think we always think to do that. We tend to make assumptions based off of our own experiences versus thinking, many losses are very different from one another. Esther talking about losing her father at eleven, that's very different than someone losing their father at sixty or fifty. But we tend not to think about the differences. We tend to think about similarities.

I was going to say, Gunner, as a pastor in your church, where have you seen churches do it well? You know, come alongside grieving people in the body when the grief is delayed. Have you seen certain things in your, yeah, time in churches or in communities where you thought, oh, that was just a sweet grace.

I think what I saw is that when people are able to grieve consistently in community, it really significantly changes that journey for them. And I don't mean that it somehow cancels or erases or even minimizes the grief, but it does mean that it's shared and that's different. And especially when that takes place over time. So an example might be if someone is in a small group, a community group that has meaningful relationships or an open door for those, even if they're relatively new or the people there are new to them, if they have an opportunity to consistently share in those kinds of settings and hear others share, it just creates a regular window into their lives on behalf of the other people in that group. And when that group is a group that not only talks but seeks to live life together and seeks to ask how we might minister to one another, then you would see, what I would see in those settings is a diversity of gifts that then get applied to that person's suffering and their grief. Love that flows through someone with a gift of teaching is going to be shaped differently than love that's flowing through someone with the gift of mercy and flow differently through someone with a gift of administration and organization. And so that's I think where that community comes around them, they stay with them, there's always an open door for that conversation to happen, and also people that are walking the reverse direction through that door. Not like, if you want to walk through the door and share and initiate sharing about this, we'll listen. But I'm also going to walk into the room where you're at and say, how is that going for you?

The other thing I've seen is that, as you said, it can be easy to be reticent to move toward people, because I think there's actually a lot of reasons behind that “because,” and that's maybe a topic for another conversation, but I think it's important to ask, what is it that keeps us from wanting to be near to people who are in pain oftentimes? But because there can be that reticence, I've really appreciated where people are lovingly assertive in moving towards others. There's plenty of people in grief and pain, especially depending on different cultures, that just, if you say, let me know if you need something, they're never gonna do that. They're just never going to do it. It's gonna feel intrusive to them if they were to do it. And so I think it takes a particular kind of just delicate love that we grow in over time where we more assertively move towards people. You know, and it could be something like, hey, I'd love to deliver a meal; wat day would be best? is a very different kind of question than, if you ever need something, let me know. And again, that might not be the best way to love a person, but as you just do the work of observing, asking, listening, working with others in community, you can find those ways. So I think those kinds of communities were where I really saw the support stand out and people move through things together.

Yeah, I just want to say the flipside of that for the listener who's listening and struggling with lingering grief and you're not in that type of community, it's really hard because to move in towards a community, because you're at a low and tempted to isolate. That's where I think ministries like Grief Share, you can go and get connected with people who are going through something similar, it just might be a more natural way to connect, feeling weak and unable. I just wanted to give people that opportunity because community is so important, but it is hard to create or start when you've experienced such loss. And that's why some of those other ministries can be really helpful to help you make those transitions. That's what you're talking about, Gunner. Because what you're saying is beautiful, it's just not always obtainable, right?

Yeah. It's beautiful and it's also ideal, by which I don't mean it's not something that's accessible to us or that we should pursue, but as you said, it's something that many people can be or feel distant from. And I've certainly seen people that are in those communities as well that when these kinds of tragedies strike or there is this significant grief, there's things about the experience that pull them away from the community, and not even I'm saying in a sinful way necessarily, but just people that, due to responsibilities or everything that just explodes or implodes in their life, they're gonna have to be pulled back towards that in a loving and gracious way. And as you said, there's other kinds of communities that are already geared toward that that someone might be able to join that's an easier on-ramp, if you will, towards relationship, is what I hear you saying too.

It's striking to hear both of you talk about how integral other people are to the ability to navigate lingering grief. It's striking because I feel like one of the lessons that I learned in my own journey of lingering grief, one of the ways that I summarize that experience is through Mark 2, where Jesus heals a paralytic and the paralytic can't walk to Jesus, can't walk and has four companions who brings the paralytic to Jesus, goes to the roof and lowers him down the roof to bring him to Jesus, and Jesus heals him. And there's no . . . there's a sense in which it was the four companions who brought him to Jesus and enabled that to happen. He didn't walk himself there. He didn't successfully, you know, get over his paralysis and make his way there. He leaned on other people for that, whether that was people within his own church community or people outside of that. Our different stories will vary.

But that is kind of one of the testimonies of grief is that sometimes it is so heavy and unrelenting and overwhelming that it won't be by our own strength and by our own internal resources that we endure it. And there are ways in which the Lord uses other people that when we feel even paralyzed by grief, that there are other people involved in that story that can bring us to Jesus. And that was certainly my own testimony of hopelessness and helplessness at one point of, I don't know how to get over this, I don't know how to get better from this. And it's just dragging on and on and on. And the more that it drags on, the more that I question God, the more I have doubts, the more it's hard to keep praying because I feel like the prayers are going unanswered. There are so many spiritual wrestlings that can come out of seasons of lingering grief and experiences of lingering grief between me and God, between us and God. And so what it means and what it looks like for people to be willing to come into that and say, I will pray when you feel like you can't pray anymore. I will hold on to faith when you feel like your faith is failing in this grief. I'll be the one to essentially bring you to Jesus, in a sense, the same way that the four companions brought the paralytic to Jesus. Yeah, that's just been so meaningful to me as I reflect on that journey that I went through and it's striking that both of you have really articulated beautifully the importance of other people in that journey.

I think that's a beautiful place to end. Thank you, Esther. And if you're listening and your grief is lingering, I would want to remind you, and I'm sure all three of us would just want to remind you that as your grief lingers, that God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit linger with you as well, and that he does not move on and rush forward without you, but that he gently tends to you and is near you and wants you to be near to him. And I'll just close with Psalm 56:8—“You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” Those words from a God who remembers and stays. Thank you for listening.