BONUS EPISODE: My talk on grief and hope for All Souls' Day

BONUS EPISODE TIME! 

... and this episode contains something that I've never shared on the podcast before.

Welcome to The Silent Why, a podcast on a mission to open up conversations around grief, to see if hope can be found in 101 different types of loss.

Many of you will know that I (Claire Sandys, host) enjoy podcasting (of course!) and writing, and drinking Earl Grey tea and eating marzipan, but what you might not know is that I also occasionally speak at church gatherings. 

This year I was asked to share something at the annual All Soul's service, which is specifically for people to come to remember those who have died. This usually takes place the week of Halloween, or as it used to be called All Hallows Eve.

So my remit for the talk was 10-15 mins on grief, loss, and the hope we have through our faith (you're starting to see why I was asked to do this, aren't you?!)

And because it was SO similar to what I also do on the podcast, and because maybe you are remembering a loved one you've lost, I thought I'd share it with you as a bonus episode.

So here it is...

Transcript

Hello you, and welcome to The Silent Why Podcast. I’m Claire, host and everything else to do with putting the podcast together.

And I’m throwing in a bonus episode here with a bit of a difference. For those of you that listen regularly, you’ll be used to hearing my blog episodes (where I read my online blog to make them into podcast episodes) and all the other types of episodes I do outside of the main 101 loss interview episodes I do with Chris. You’ll also know that I love to write, that I’m working on the final edits to my first novel, that my husband and I are childless, that struggle with health issues after being thrown into surgical menopause in my late 30’s, and that I love marzipan.

However, what you might not know, is that I also do talks at my church. I don’t share a lot of my faith on the podcast because that’s not what the podcast is about, but I enjoy speaking to people in lots of different capacities, whether that’s one-on-one, through a podcast, or up in front of a group of people, and church allows me to talk and share about something else that I’m passionate about as well as grief, loss and hope.

So I thought I’d share one of my very recent talks with you. Why? You might ask. Well, I’m sharing this particular talk because it’s about grief, it mentions the podcast (which you know about but those sat listening didn’t know about), and it talks about hope and my personal reasons for faith in Jesus. And I thought some of you might be interested in hearing me talk about grief in a different setting, and why, ultimately, I believe faith helps in the really dark times that we go through. 

The talk I’m going to share is from a service we had at our church, this month, in October, called All Soul’s. It’s a day in the church calendar to remember those that have died. It happens around All Hallows Eve (known as Halloween to most). Ahead of the service anyone at all can send in a name of someone to remember, and during the service we read them out and light a candle for each person lost. It’s a very moving time of reflection and it’s a service that attracts people whether they’re part of the church or not, whether they have a faith or not. 

This year our Vicar, and my good friend, Mike, asked me if I’d be willing to do the talk. It’s just a 10-15min slot to talk about something relevant to those that have come to remember lost ones, but also to speak about the hope that is offered through our faith.

A chance to talk to people about grief, and add-in one of the things that’s been a life-line to me in mine - of course I’m gonna say yes to that!

So I thought I’d share it with you too. You might have a faith, you might not, but chances are if you’re listening to this podcast you know something about grief, and you’ve probably lost someone you loved, in which case, just imagine you’re one of the people who turned up to remember them.

I’ll set the scene for you. We meet in a church hall, the seats are arranged in two rows that run in a circle, in the middle of the circle is a table with two large candles on it, lit, and many tea lights, which will be lit during the reading of the names. The lighting in the room is dim. I was sitting at the back of one of the two rows. Sarah, my other good friend, and Mike’s wife, stood to do the Bible reading (which was Psalm 34 if you want to look that up), and then when she finished I stood to do my bit. 

[INTRO MUSIC]

START OF TALK...

Hello I’m Claire. 

And I've been part of the St George’s church family here for about 4 years, and during the week I host and edit a podcast about grief. 

Through the podcast I’ve interviewed many people about their losses, whether that’s going through the death of a loved one (of any age), or grieving other losses like divorce, redundancy, retirement, losing health or mobility, losing your identity, or maybe being childless (like my husband and me). 
Almost certainly, you'll know what the pain of loss feels like. 

There are many losses that need to be grieved, but today, we are focusing on the loss of life; pregnancies, babies, children, young adults, adults, the elderly, family, friends, relatives, or colleagues, people that are no longer with us. 

We're probably here today to remember people we loved. 
 
Because grief and love are closely entwined parts of the human experience. 
One of my podcast guests said:

“You only grieve if you love, that makes you more of a human being, and not less.” 

And so we will all experience grief, because we all love something, or someone, - and eventually every body dies.  
(And I also want to acknowledge the added complications in grief when we lose someone we had a difficult relationship with, because that grief is just as valid, but can often feel very confusing and hard to talk about).

Jesse Jackson said:
“We live on the dash between our birth date and our death date.” 

None of us know how long that dash is, every day we’re talking to people who are somewhere on that line and their age is no indication of how far along it they might be. 

And despite the millions of people that have come and gone before us, and despite death being a part of daily life, it’s not something we’re very good at talking about or acknowledging in the UK. 
We often hide it away, sweep it out of sight, as if we’re embarrassed by it and don’t know what to do with it. 

And that’s probably because grieving doesn’t feel good. In many ways, we have no control over grief - we don’t know when it’s coming, and we can’t stop it. Grief often drags us kicking and screaming away from what we want the most, leaving us painfully aware there’s not a single thing we can do about it. 

Grief can be so powerful it even affects us physically - and that, quite frankly, can be scary.

Our grief is also unique to us, it has to be, because we are all unique, and no two people respond the same way, even to losing the same person. So we shouldn't compare losses, because it doesn’t help anyone to know their loss could have been better, or might have been worse.
But this can also make grief lonely sometimes too. 

So because of this, I'm going to assume, grief is not our favourite thing to go through. 

But I believe we do ‘grief’ a huge disservice if we leave it there - just paint it black, mark it as ‘bad’, and wish it never happened.

Because I know, and so do many others, that, painful as it is, grief can also bring beauty, and hope, into our lives. 

(If we let it.)

Now, this doesn’t mean that one day grief just up and leaves you, and everything’s good again. In fact, it’s far more likely grief will walk beside you every day of your life (in some capacity), but what form that takes - is down to us individually. 

I read this poem on social media a couple of years ago, and it really spoke to me about this exact thing:

Grief by Gwen Flowers

I had my own notion of grief.
I thought it was the sad time
That followed the death of someone you love.
And you had to push through it
To get to the other side.
But I’m learning there is no other side.
There is no pushing through.
But rather,
There is absorption.
Adjustment.
Acceptance.
And grief is not something you complete
But rather, you endure.
Grief is not a task to finish
And move on,
But an element of yourself –
An alteration of your being.
A new way of seeing.
A new dimension of self.


You don’t ‘get over’ grief. It will eventually become part of you, and you will sort of absorb into a new version of you. 

And we do have some control over this. Because your grief will become whatever you let it. It can create beauty in your life, but it can also destroy it. This is the choice - what will we allow it to become?

I was speaking to an expert on grief recently and she said; ‘There comes a point when people have to decide, am I going to stay with the dead, or reengage with the living?’


The podcast I host doesn’t just look at grief and loss, it also looks at hope. Is it possible to find hope in every kind of loss? And I chat to people who have been through each type of grief firsthand to find out. 

And I’ve discovered that finding hope through grief, is also a choice. 

Hope doesn’t just come to some people and not to others, it’s a choice to believe hope can exist, and then find what that looks like for you. 

Desmond Tutu said: 
‘Hope is being able to see that there is light - despite all of the darkness.’

It’s a choice to open our eyes and see that there is always light, always hope, despite all of the darkness we might find around us. Hope is not pretending there isn’t any darkness, or that the darkness has suddenly vanished, it’s a light that shines through the dark. Into our grief. 


I love that we use candles at services like this. They symbolise hope, love, and faith, and remind us that there can still be light even in dark times. And for those who believe, it also reminds us of Jesus - the Light of the World. 

In the book of John, it says this about Jesus coming at Christmas: 

John 1:4-5
“What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.”

Darkness cannot extinguish light on its own. Grief cannot extinguish hope on its own. In both situations light and hope only live, or die, because we let them.

Some of the most inspiring stories you’ll have heard, charities you’ll support, films you’ll watch and books you’ll read will have come from, or contain, some form of loss. 

Stories and experiences that only contain mountaintop moments and no valleys, are not inspiring, or even relatable. 

We are more inspired by people who go through pain, loss and grief, and then allow hope and light in to create something wonderful because of it. It doesn’t mean their grief was any easier to go through, it was what they chose to do with it. 

For us, this doesn't need to mean setting up multi-million-pound charities, or directing an Oscar-winning film, it might be a small brave action, like sharing our grief to help someone else, or maybe just choosing to let hope in (instead of despair), or maybe allowing ourselves to heal.


I’d like to share with you what gives me hope in my grief.

It’s probably no surprise to you, being in a church hall, with a Vicar leading the service, and singing hymns, that what gives the person delivering the talk, hope - is Jesus. 

But what you won’t already know, is why. 

Why does Jesus, and believing in God, help me in my grief? How does it help me?

Well, it’s not an airy, fairy, ‘I believe there’s a God’ and so that makes everything simple. 

Believing in God doesn’t make my grief any easier to go through, there aren’t less tears, or less anger, it doesn’t answer all the ‘why’ questions I might have about why I’ve lost family members and friends, or why my health has not been great for so many years, or why our friend’s only child died at the age of 8. 

I don’t know why my husband and I couldn’t have children (I mean I know the physical reasons why, but I don’t know why in the grand scheme of things this wasn’t something that would happen for us). I don’t know why some babies die without even taking one breath, and some of us live to be over 100. 

But then for me, faith is not about God answering all my questions and making life easier for me (nice as that would be at times!). 

We live in a broken world alongside illness, disease, and death, (none of which was God’s original plan for us btw), and what helps me in this - is knowing I have someone with me in it. I’m not alone.
 
How do I know that? 

Because I’ve experienced what Jesus can do when you ask Him into your life. I have a relationship with Him that is not trivial, He's my friend, my Saviour, my comforter, my light in the dark, He's life-giving, and that’s made my life worth living - even in the times when I struggle. 


There’s a myriad of grief in the Bible, in all forms, which is helpful to me when I go through rough patches, but it’s also full of promises that I’ve chosen to believe and lean on, and that help me through the hard times.

Like…

Psalm 34 (which we heart read a moment ago) (v17-19)
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those whose spirits are crushed.”

Matthew 10:29-319
“...not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.”

Psalm 56:8
“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” 

Psalm 147:3
“He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.”

Hebrews 13:5-6
“God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.” So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper, so I will have no fear.”

Isaiah 61:3
He has promised… 
“... to comfort all who mourn, 
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, 
the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” 

Revelation 7:16-17
“He will lead them to springs of life-giving water.
And God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

These promises (and so much more in the Bible) gives me hope beyond the grief of this world.

It’s been said that God doesn’t parachute us out of our challenges/grief/sadness/frustrations etc, He parachutes in to be with us. 

God has promised to always be with us. 

Would we like Him to fix every bad thing in our life, and in the world? Sure! 
Is that a realistic solution for all the problems humans cause? Not really. 

Like a loving parent, He doesn’t fix everything for us and pull us out of every bad thing we encounter, that’s not helpful to our growth, but He does promise to be there with us.

But there's more than Him just being there with me. With us. 

Jesus hasn’t just promised to be with me in my pain - He’s also been through it. Personally.

Jesus said, just before He was crucified (by the very people He’d come to save):
“My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death.” (Matthew 26:38)

He knows what it’s like to be lied to, betrayed, to watch friends die, lose a parent, to be ignored, rejected, despised, misunderstood, murdered. 

He knew the single life, the childless life, He knew hard work, He knew what it was to be poor, to be a refugee, He knew what it was to stand up for something you believe in (that you know will benefit others) and be rejected and ridiculed for it. 

Jesus knew hard times when He was human on Earth.

BUT then, in classic Jesus style, He goes one better again. 

Jesus isn't just there with us, He doesn’t just share these things we go through - He conquered them! 

By rising from the dead - He conquered grief, He conquered pain, He conquered tears, He conquered.. death. 

Not just because He could - but out of love, for me. For you. 
And because of this we worship a living God - not a dead one. 

God knows your pain. He collects your tears. 
He sits with you when you're alone in your grief, and one day, He longs to wipe every tear from your eye and give you an everlasting life where all the pain, sorrow, grief and heartache of this world will be swept away. This may not always be easy, or feel true, but in my experience, it's worth fighting for. 

It’s not tricky or complicated to choose hope in Jesus, Psalm 42 shows us just how simple it can be to make that decision with a few words: 

“Why am I discouraged?
Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
I will praise Him again—
my Saviour and my God!”