We've all heard it, "Time heals all wounds." We've all been told, "Hang in there, it’ll get better." And you've also heard, "Just wait for time to take away your pain." Or how about this one, "Just put on a happy smile. Grin and bear it." Who says these kinds of things? They are the ones who have not yet gone through the dark night of the soul; people who have not lost a spouse or a child or a parent... or a cherished, precious loved one.

Here are 21 statements I have heard from people whose loved one has died, and you may have heard some of these, too. In fact, you may have even said some of them. I certainly have. They are common reactions within the grieving process.

Here’s some more ideas to help you move forward, to help you get unstuck in your grief. So, get a pen and paper or your journal and write these 6 things down.

When you’re stuck in grief, you close yourself off from interactions in life that normally would be healthy for you. You’re so grieved, so full of sorrow that you close your world in. You start disengaging from life so as to control your world. But the more you disengage, the more you’ve cut off that life supply… and now you’re really, deeply stuck in grief. Discover in this podcast how you can begin to become unstuck in your grief.

When we grieve, especially within those first absolutely awful six months to a year after our loved one has passed, we really do have a terrible tendency to turn within and avoid just about everything. How do you and I get out of that awful ditch that’s right beside the track where Jesus is to pull us up so as to bring restoration and healing and reorganization and recovery into our painful grieving? Discover how to do it in this podcast.

The final two stages or phases of the four phases of grief.

Here you'll discover the four key elements that are common to each of the four phases or stages of grief and the help and hope they bring to you.

When we’ve lost a loved one, we all go through some common stages or phases of grief such as these four I’m about to share with you with the first two coming in this podcast. Yes, there are more phases you may have read about or heard of, but these four really do cover them all and are foundational for you to understand what you and I are going through and that its okay, that it is normal.

Just what is this painfully, awful, dark night of the soul called Grief? It’s the normal process of reacting to a loss. The loss may be physical (such as a death), social (such as divorce), or occupational (such as a job). Here’s a kind of a yes or no check list for you and me beginning with: Grief affects our entire being… everything.

So, to answer my own question of “why am I qualified to help you with your grieving process here on the From Grief to Glory podcasts? Well. Yes, I am more than qualified to help you with your grieving process because I do spend a lot of time in that dark night of the soul, and I do battle on that awful field of grief way too many times.