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Divorce, Grief, Suicide but GraceThough none of us are promised tomorrow, there is so much pain in loss. And when we or someone we love goes through grief it can be so hard to know how to relate. 85% of marriages break apart because of some kind of trauma. Today we hear from Penny who bravely shares her experiences that have helped her to minister to so many hurting, because of what she went through. I encourage you to listen to hear how healing and grace can be part of your story of grief.

More on Penny’s ministry here: inverseministries.org

 

Scripture/Quote:

  • I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Psalm 16:8
  • When David and his men came to the city, behold, it was burned with fire, and their wives and their sons and their daughters had been taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him lifted their voices and wept until there was no strength in them to weep. 1 Samuel 30:3-4

Emotional Intimacy

You’ll Discover:

  • That Penny and her husband were divorced and then got remarried to each other.
  • How growing in emotional intimacy has to be intentional and how God will partner with you in that.
  • How Penny experienced tragedy when she got the call that her brother had taken his life.
  • How the pain of grief threatened to undermine all they worked to build in their marriage.
  • How most marriages don’t survive grief (85%), but the Bragg’s study of it made all the difference.
  • How to respond to someone else in grief.
  • How to heal through grief and how to find the support you need.

 

Resources Mentioned:

Be a Wreck

Tweetables:

  • We were the biggest marriage failure ever.
  • We hadn’t built any emotional intimacy in our marriage and that made it easier to break apart.
  • A lot of times I couldn’t talk much, I would just cry and he would hold me.
  • You can be a wreck until you’re not.
  • You feel so abnormal when you’re grieving.
  • For as long as it takes, I’m not going anywhere.
  • Yeah, I’m grieving and there’s no apology needed.
  • When you hear tragedies around suicide, please respond with empathy and prayer.

 

Thanks for listening! I hope you are encouraged to live in wholehearted intimacy!

 

Love,

Belah

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Transcript

0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host belah rose.

0:19
I think one of the biggest lessons God teaches us on a daily basis if we let him is empathy. There are so many people around you day in and day out that are struggling with significant things. And for us to stand in that place with empathy. With Me too, with, I want to hear what you’re going through, I want to care about you like Jesus cares about me. Today is a powerful story. First of all, Penny Bragg who’s just an amazing woman, you can tell just by listening. She married a man got divorced, a long time later got remarried to that same man. And then they went through a real tragedy in their lives. And Penny shares what her journey looked like dealing with intense grief. And if you have never gone through grief, I think this is an opportunity to hear what what it sounds like, what it is like, and I think it also gives you this opportunity to see that there’s hope. There’s hope for marriages, there’s hope for relationships, whether you’re the person that’s experiencing the grief, you are the person that’s supporting someone else who has experienced grief. Or, you know, somewhere in between, we also talk about something significant suicide, and it’s just affected so many people, and whether you know, someone that took their life, or whether you’ve contemplated it yourself, I just want to encourage you that this is a safe space to listen in to hear what God might want to tell you through this message. I share something about my own life that one of the most difficult things I’ve gone through and I’ll share a little bit more at the end. But God might have some real important insights he wants you to glean today, some empathy, some hope, some encouragement. I’m praying that this will really impact you. And bless your marriage. Bless your heart. Bless your relationship with the Lord. Alright, let’s go ahead and listen in.

2:52
Hi, there, this is belah rose, thank you so much for listening today. I’m really excited to have penny a Bragg with us at inverse ministries.org. And I think she’s got an amazing story to share. And I’m really excited to get into that. So welcome, Penny, how are you? Thanks, fella doing really well. Thanks for having me on the show. Absolutely. I’m really glad to have you. We were just talking about you’re also a radio host on a broadcast. So you know just how this I do. I do. And I think it’s I don’t know, it’s either or it’s fun to be on both sides of the microphone. Let’s put it that way. It’s nice. Yeah. No, it is. It really is. Very cool. Well, would you be willing to introduce yourself a little bit about your family and a little bit about your day to day life? Absolutely. So I am actually a California native. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and relocated to Florida with my husband, Clint in 2007. We had been praying over a map of the United States and asking God, you know, because a lot of our marriage work was happening in the east and long story short, he relocated us to the Daytona Beach area. And so our day to day lives kind of interesting has changed a lot. We are missionaries, we are marriage missionary. So we’re on the road a ton until just a few years ago, and we opened a ministry center so that we have a place where we can serve locally when we’re not on the road. So our day to day includes that includes a radio show, working on our second book right now and we do not have kids in our home. So that does allow some flexibility, although we have been through the challenges of parenting and even step parenting. So yeah, so that’s kind of where God has us right now just serving him. You know, as he leads so the Ministry Center is kind of a new thing. We’re still getting used to that in our daily lives.

4:54
Hmm. Oh, that’s really cool. That’s that sounds like yeah, just amazing. I’m excited to get more into what you all do? Well, would

5:01
you share a little bit about you and Clints personalities? Absolutely. The best way I can say it is that Clint is a proverb. And I am a psalm is the best way that I can explain. Like, yeah, he is very much black and white. If then he actually loves the book of Proverbs, I think that really resonates with his heart and Psalms is my favorite book, you know, just, I can go from zero to 60 in just one sentence. And so I think that best describes he loves patterns and models. And you know, you give him a picture and he can recreate or create things. He’s very linear. And I’m not linear at all. I love to fly by the seat of my pants be thrown into the fire. And he does not so much like that. So it’s a little insight into us. That is so funny. Yeah, I, I definitely hear that. That’s really good. I think we can a lot of us can relate to the being a psalm because you’re at one moment. You know, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. And then shortly thereafter, you’re like, Oh, my enemies are surrounding. forsaken me God. Yeah, that’s wild. Yeah, that’s good. As we’re getting started, this whole podcast and interview is really about inspiring and empowering wives to live wholehearted intimacy in their marriages. So is there a scripture or a quote that has meant a lot to you over the years that you could share with us? You know, there are several Bella. But most recently, from Psalm 16, verse eight, it says, I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, and I will not be shaken. And that might sound like a strange verse to claim over intimacy or your marriage. But really, these are troubled times. And I know that we have hit a lot of warfare and opposition and struggles in our extended family. And so I’ve really been cleaned to that verse, feeling like every aspect of our marriage can be shaken at a moment’s notice just the nature of our world. And so, for me each morning, when I read and recite and rewrite that verse, I’m just really literally setting the Lord, you know, Lord, you go before me, you know, what our marriage is going to encounter today. So if I set you before me that I’ve got that stability that I need, when all around me is shaking, Mm hmm. And that’s a very proactive, proactive measure to take that I set the Lord before me. You know, that’s an action that’s not just willy nilly feeling our way through life or feeling our way through that day or our marriage. I set the Lord always before me, I love Yeah, it’s almost kinesthetic, like you can, you can take something, think about something that’s set before you and it’s in your vision. It’s in your pathway. You’re interacting with it. So I really tried to get visual and just say, Okay, God, you know, before I get to this, and this and this, I’m setting you there to go through that with me. Mm hmm. Yep. That’s really good. I love that. Well, I’m interested in hearing about your marriage about a struggle or a season that was difficult for you all, and kind of what happened in that in that season?

8:16
Absolutely. I’ll call and take a two pronged approach to that. First of all, our marriage is a bit unique in that we’ve been married to each other twice. So when we’re in a joking mood, we say that once just wasn’t enough, so we had to, had to do it again. But seriously, I mean, we were the biggest marriage failure ever. We were married as Christians, but had no clue how to do marriage. God’s way both had wounds from our past. So we actually did not even make it to our second anniversary, blew apart, I left the marriage, I was the one that took more of the stand to just walk away and, and then after an 11 year gap, and I mean gap, like we had not seen each other talk to each other, no contact whatsoever. After that 11 year gap, God miraculously began to reconcile and restore us. So we’ve been remarried to each other now for almost 14 years. So that’s kind of our background, we come at everything, just as messengers of reconciliation and restoration. So any maybe wife who might be tuned in who thinks that you know what, this is too hard for God to reconcile and restore, it really isn’t because we had it all we had sexual stuff to work through and all that and so then being married, you know, you asked about recent trials or seasons, just marriage in general for us has been like, we have to learn how to do this, you know, how do we really bond physically and in our intimate relationship, and then so we’ve worked through all that, you know, pretty, pretty hard for many years. And then in 2011, just when our marriage or you know, really hit what I’d say more of that stride, you know, like, Okay, we’ve been doing this for 10 years now and hit that stride, we had a tragedy in our family. very tragic loss, my younger brother. And it was just the nature of it was traumatic, it was unexpected, you know, he took his own life. And so we had never encountered anything like that in our marriage to grieve differently, to learn how to suffer together. So that has probably been the biggest, I guess, season of difficulty was just how do we, how do we do tragedy? You know, wow. Yeah. So I just have so many questions. So when you affirm I mean, it’s just just a wild story that first of all, you’re married for that year, and then broke apart from there. Can you tell us a little bit about what that initial meant? You know, a divorce happened, like, why did that happen? Oh, really. I mean, I know, we both can look back and see that we had a part in it. We never built any any emotional intimacy in the marriage, which makes it easier to disconnect. But I was actually, I was kind of in a faith crisis. I was young in my faith. And we had gone on a mission trip together. And it was the first time I had ever seen or come face to face with that question of suffering. Like, why does God allow we were over in Haiti, and we saw suffering. And I came back from that, and Clint was all like, raring to go, and I was like, Wait a second, I am in a crisis of faith here, you know. And so we just started one division after another. And it was the perfect scenario, I let someone else in emotionally in a place where I hadn’t let anyone else in. And so I took that step outside of our marriage, and, you know, packed a few things in the suitcase, and roll that out our front door so well. And then, you know, Clint, can see now his part, he may not have been unfaithful, but he had a real John Wayne kind of personality. Suck it up, you know, yeah, way of dealing with women. And he goes, I didn’t know how to, you know, build intimacy with you. Yeah, now we can look back and see that it’s hindsight, you know? Yeah, well, that’s injured. I mean, when a husband does respond that way, I mean, the marriage can feel so lonely, you just feel so separate and isolated. And the space where you’re supposed to have this amazing bond is like, seems like a desert. And that

12:43
does and, you know, no one tells you before you get married, that all your childhood wounds and gunk, and all that is gonna come up right in the middle of your marriage. And we didn’t know what to do with any of that we had kept things that happened to us as kids, we had kept those from one another. So just kind of, we kind of had a tough exterior both of us and didn’t want to expose the stuff that had happened to us. So yeah, it was really the perfect scenario for walls to be erected. And they were definitely erected. So much so that I filed for divorce. I mean, I was once I took that step, I felt like I had committed the unforgivable sin and in my relationship with God to I felt like a failure. Just big huge failure. Yeah, I mean, it’s just happens to all of us when we kind of know the direction we should be going in. And then we kind of step outside of that. And then it’s just like, it feels so much harder to get back in line with God’s will, because we intentionally moved away from it kind of one thing I kind of want to point out is the building emotional intimacy. I love that you said the word building, because it’s not something that you just turn off and on, right, oh, it takes so much time and effort and intentional work, you know, we have the benefit the second time around of learning from our mistakes, and saying, like, wow, we’re really going to have to work with God to build this thing called emotional intimacy. It’s not just going to happen, because, you know, we’re both Christians or something. Yes, you know, we’re going to have to work at it. And that means finding out where those wounded places are. And, you know, just kind of exposing some of those things that we didn’t really want to talk about the first time around. So yeah, it takes it takes work, but it’s doable. That’s the thing is once you realize that, oh, you know, we’re not alone in this. There’s other people that you don’t have the same kind of questions or maybe even failures that we have. And we just we really took the bull by the horns Bella, we just the second time around when we realize God had given us a second chance. I remember we hadn’t been remarried that long and we were standing in the kitchen, and we had a little disagreement about something and I think the fear of messing it up, again, kind of hidden. Let’s get before God and let him have his way this time. So that was a huge turning point for us of saying, Lord, you know, we have no guarantee that we’re going to make it the second time around. So show us all the things that we need to, you know, work on it. Trust was one and intimacy was the I mean, those are just two, those were just two but trust and intimacy are huge. Yes, yes. Well, so when you had this time apart, 11 years is not a short time. That’s a long time.

15:37
Yeah, what kind of happened in that in that space? Well, when we, we realized that, you know, the marriage was over, we went our separate ways. And we were very cold. I especially, I mean, I remember Bella, if he showed up, Clint showed up at my work one day, to try one last time to reconcile with me, and I was so cold hearted, I took my wedding ring off, and I threw it across the room at him. And he laughed, he you know, he left. And so after we had parted ways, because things ended like that. We had no contact, there was no Internet, then either. So it’s not like what people do nowadays, and Facebook and texting each other and all that. So that 11 year gap, what we didn’t know is that we both wandered from God, we both tried life on our own. And we both bottomed out, believe it or not about the same time about eight years after our divorce. We both hit the bottom of the bottom, except neither one of us do. The other one was hitting it, you know, wow, come to find out Clint had actually moved away from California, he was living in Florida. So he’s about 3000 miles away. But our lives just paralleled he had become a teacher, I had become a teacher. I mean, things like that, that were just unbelievable. So He reconciled his relationship with God. I did the same thing. And then only after God had met us both. And we had repented and really gotten a hold of who Jesus was becoming whole in Christ. All the things that we didn’t know to do the first time around. Only then it’s kind of funny. I, I had worked through all my issues or a lot of my issues. And God said, you know, there’s one big fat thing that you have not dealt with. And that is that you need to apologize and find Clint and apologize. There was no Yeah, I was like really, God no, really have to do that. So I said, you know, well, if I find him, all right, a letter if you find him and God was like, yeah, that’s kind of funny, because now the internet was up. And everybody was finding people on free people search websites. So it was 2000, winter of 2002. And I found him on the internet. He was living in Florida. And I wrote up the most honest letter that I had ever written. I apologize, I admitted, my unfaithfulness. And I knew he had probably gone on and been successful. And I all I wanted to do was give him what he deserved, which was an apology, admitting what I had done. And then just I was ready for the closure part, just closure. So there was no intent to reconcile. I was actually pretty scared that he was going to, like, blast me off the face of the earth. I mean, rightly so I left pretty, pretty destructive way. So I mailed the letter, and I thought that was I was done. I was closure, no closure. Hmm. So yeah, that was not God’s plan. Yeah. Before you move on to the next part of this because everyone’s on the edge of their seats. What happened, but I want to ask, I’m a door divorcee myself, and I know there’s plenty of those listening and people that know divorcees, and that kind of thing. You know, it’s a hard it’s really hard structurally, and it’s really hard. I know, I went away from Christ after the divorce, because I just felt like a failure. I felt like I went away from him. I did the wrong thing. And, you know, is that something that you suggest to divorcees to kind of get a chance to apologize for your side of it? Or is that something that you feel like God specifically put on your heart? Not necessarily. Does everyone kind of need to go to that space? Do you have a sense yet? Well, it’s interesting. You know, I’ve been asked that question before, because sometimes the thought of, of what’s happened in our marriage makes people a little bit nervous, like, Oh, my goodness, do I have to contact me?

19:34
Please tell me, I don’t have to do that. But you know what happened to me? All I can say is it was out of obedience, like God kept pressing it on my heart. He was relentless about it. Like I would smell Clints cologne out of nowhere or his name, somebody would ask me something about him or I’d meet someone who had his name. And so God was pretty relentless of laying that on my heart and he brought me to a point in my relationship where I love Jesus so much that I wanted to be, I wanted to do what he wanted me to do. So I’ve seen it happen both ways. I’ve seen God take a person, like, you know me and say, you need to bring closure, you know, come clean with your part of the breakdown so that you can have peace in your heart. And so, you know, from a peaceful standpoint, it did make me feel like I had peace and to move on. Because I, you know, I really was wanting to move on with my life. So I don’t know if I answered your question, but I’ve seen it happen both ways. Where God just really says, Yes, I want you to, you know, confess and just kind of admit your part, even if you weren’t the one, maybe it was the husband that, you know, that walked away or whatever, but just for the sake of saying, hey, there were some things that just want to come clean, because I’m moving on with God now. And, you know, but don’t be surprised at what God does through that forgiveness, because I didn’t see this coming. Yeah, well, and I wonder also just thinking about, you know, God’s ways are so much higher than ours, and he knows if there’s purposes behind it, uh, we don’t understand. So, you know, I’m remarried. I have, there’s obviously no, there’s no chance of that kind of a story. But you just never know if God wants there to be some acknowledgment. Because I know that when I was away from Christ for those couple years following my divorce, even though I don’t think it was God’s will for us to reconcile if I had just received an apology or something along those lines, some acknowledgment that I was hurt wrongfully, or any of those kinds of things that might have made my position towards Christ very difference. Definitely, I definitely agree. Yeah. And you know, too, there’s a lot of, I don’t know, you know, different feelings, Clint was married before me. And he became a Christian, and actually during a marriage, and then his wife, things, you know, did not go so well, when he was a believer, and she wasn’t anyway, there was a lot of destructive behavior on her part. So there are a lot of people who this sounds crazy, and I’m sure you faced it, too. They almost discredited us because of the divorce and remarriage on his part. And we’re like, wow, you know what, that’s the Lord’s. I mean, that they just some people, you know, feel strongly about that, but we are not. I mean, we know that sometimes God does. His plan includes remarriage and children. So I bless you in that, because that’s what God did with Clint. And then yeah, married me. So yeah, yeah, I kind of feel like sometimes we get the, you know, scripture that says that God hates divorce. And, and, and it’s not something that he wants us to do. And it is a sin to get divorced. But, God, I mean, Jesus went to the cross for every single sin and everyone, everyone. So yes, we’re not. That’s not. That’s not what we set out to do. i My husband and I both are like, we just wish we were the first ones we ever met. I mean, it just would have been such a, you know, we can prescribe that all day long. But God has got a second chances. He’s got a forgiveness. And so you just should not continue feeling like your life and your walk with Christ as a failure. If you got divorced. Yeah, absolutely. No. And I think there are a lot of finally on the marketplace. There are some great resources that really speak to that. And so yeah, if you’re a listener out there, and you’ve been divorced, and you feel that failure, I mean, I felt it. I know. Yeah, absolutely. No, so you’re not, you’re not a failure. And God does have a plan. And I hope for you, yes. Well, yes. Amen. Well, okay, so finish this amazing tale. Just excited. Okay, so, so you wrote this letter, and then well, I was too afraid to mail it as I at the time, God had brought this amazing PR partner, Gal into my life. And so I asked her to help me have the courage to, to mail it. And so she did, she went with me, and we mailed the letter. And I just Bella, I just felt the greatest amount of release and relief. I was a principal elementary school principal at the time. So, you know, I was busy with my career and everything. And I came home from work one day, and there was a blinking light on my answering machine. And there was that voice I hadn’t heard in 11 years. And all it said was, I got your letter, you know, like,

24:26
I’m going to call back, you know, one more time eight o’clock your time if you’re there, you’re there. If you’re not, you’re not and I was like, Oh, you got to be kidding me. Yeah. So he called he called and we often refer to that conversation as the Grand conversation. Because it lasted five hours. Yeah. Even had to take potty breaks. I mean, it was that, you know, so and I was so fearful that he was finally going to, you know, kind of let me have it. But instead he told me that he had really bottomed out with God and reconciled his relationship with God. And we just we had all these questions for each other. And it was, it was probably it would not probably it was the most unexpected, intimate. I mean, we were never even into that intimate in our first marriage, you know, sharing this stuff. And he told me some things that happened to him as a little boy that made sense, you know, in some of his behavior, and I told him some things that happened to me as a little girl. I mean, it was just like, wow. So we had the five hours, we prayed together, we extended forgiveness, we apologized. He apologized to me for his lack of emotional availability. I mean, it was so wonderful. And we cried, and we prayed, and we hung up. And then I thought, Okay, God, moving on. That’s it. And two days later, I get this letter in the mail from him that he had mailed it evidently, after we hung up. And I’ll just cut to the chase at the bottom of the letter, it said, you know, there’s one question that I didn’t ask you on the phone. And that is, have you ever thought about reconciliation? I was like, No, I did not know because having been unfaithful to I was like, Are you kidding me? Why would you even want me back? I mean, that was just, it was such an example of Christ’s love for us. His No, just arms wide open. Yeah, so I call them and I said, I got to be honest with you. That was not I mean, he goes, No, I know. Your letter said there was no intent. But have you ever written I’m like, No, I’d never ever thought about it. But I guess we better just start praying because I never saw any. You know, neither one of us ever. That was just not even in our realm. You know, the story in the Bible. zekiel 37. Where is he kills walking back and forth in the valley of dry bones? I mean, that had been us for 11 years. So yeah, yeah. So yeah. Pretty wild. God is pretty, pretty wild. Yeah. And so then, did he move or did you move or well did long distance for Yeah, I did 3000 mile thing for a while. Every Sunday night, we would talk on the phone and pray for each other. And you know what’s funny, we never did that stuff. When we were married the first time we didn’t. I mean, we prayed over meals. And we prayed at church, but not by have really together. So we started doing that we started sharing scripture back and forth. And then we decided to meet each other. And we thought that we picked like a neutral zone in the United States. Just in case things didn’t go. We had our own separate rooms. We did everything, you know, aboveboard, but we met in Denver, that was kind of the closest we could get between the two of us. And it was about three months after I’d written the letter. So Secretly, I kind of thought, great, he’s gonna wait till we’re face to face and then he’s gonna let me have it. You know, he’s gonna be like, yeah, so I have never been so nervous in my entire life walking up the thing to meet him in the airport. And we often show the video I had actually given my video camera to someone on the airplane, and asked them to film our reunion. Kind of crazy. I know, but I did. So we actually have that footage. And you can just see the nervousness on my face. And then Clint just opens His arms. And just, yeah, that is so precious. So it wasn’t an easy weekend. We were really gut wrenchingly honest with each other, and spent a lot of time in prayer talking about what had happened and where God had taken us both. And then at the end of that weekend, Clint did propose to be oh my god. Yeah, I know. I know. So three more months would go by before he would finally pack everything up, sell his home in Florida moved back to California, and we were remarried on August 17 2002. Wow. And then the hard work started. Right. She’s okay. Wow. Well, I mean, one thing that specifically stuck out to me before was just thinking through how someone heals from such past. I mean, so much history of inflicting pain on each other and then this huge separation where you both have done life apart for so long, and

29:45
yeah, it was no small feat. It was a little scary after the euphoria like people were freaking out that we were rebound. I mean, friends from our first church came to the wedding or family or family was like what I mean to my dad actually got saved as a result of Yeah, because he was so shocked that we were, you know, reconciling. And he’s like, what, how did this happen? I’m like, Well, Dad, so all this is going on, but then you got to be married, you know, you have to be married. So we figured out pretty quickly, but we better get on our face before God and really let him have his way. And that’s what happened. I mean, God just really got our attention. And we started doing some super tangible stuff, and asking God intentionally to show us how to do marriage his way this time. Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, I know, we could talk forever. For a long time about that. Yes. Well, and then you shared just the most painful thing that happened after all of that hard, hard work. Where you I met, I’m guessing you had built a good amount of emotional intimacy at that point. And your ministry was already happening. Yeah. Yeah, we had been in full time serving God since 2006. On the road, you know, just had really some rhythms, some stride going in the ministry and also marriage. And then on December 11 2011, we got a call that just shattered our world, ela, it just shattered our world, you know, mental illness, I know, people are more willing to talk about it. These days, my brother had courageously fought a battle for 20 years, with mental illness, and he just could not fight any longer. And so we got the call that my sister had founded, and he had taken his life. And even for all the years, Clint and I had built, we actually had 11 years of marriage. under our belt, it was still a whole new territory for us. Wow. Yeah. Wow. It’s tough. It’s tough. Oh, my gosh, yeah. And there’s men and women don’t grieve the same way. You know, that first year took us a while to figure it out, too. Because I was very, very close to my little brother. And so Clint was seeing his seeing me, this is how he says that he said, when you lost your brother, I felt like I lost my wife. And it was just because that grief, if you’ve never lost someone close to you, especially that trauma of suicide is very complex. And so here, I’m, I’m, you know, we’re clean. It’s Christmas time, we’re having to race to California, we’re cleaning out his house. And, yeah, it’s Christmas, and oh, gosh, the new year and all of that. And all of a sudden, I got really, I just kind of crawled into a little hole with the darkness of the grief. And Clint didn’t know what to do. He was just like, he could not take away my pain. He didn’t, he wasn’t sure what to do. So again, we had to every Sunday night, what we did was, ask God, as hard as this is show us how to grieve together, show us how to grieve together because Clint was real. He was close to my brother, too, but not in the same way. So he was able to not maybe grieve as the same way or as deeply I mean, I was really feeling it. I was crying a lot. And, you know, it’s something as simple as he would say, Hey, why are you crying? And I’d look at him like, Are you kidding me? What do you mean, in my mind? He go, and he would mean, like, Did you see a picture of your breath? Not, you know, and I would take it as What do you mean? Why am I crying? My brother die? You know? Right, right. Little Things could create a big gap between a husband and a wife. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that I mean, when you when you talk to marriages that have gone through this kind of pain. I mean, a lot of marriages don’t survive grief. They don’t know. I mean, what do you think major is different? Well,

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we knew that if we didn’t, you know, really pay attention and kind of study it, we had to turn. You know, you don’t really want to study anything, when you’re grieving is just, you’re just existing in the day to day but I remember we really hadn’t made a decision to Okay, let’s recognize the fact that this is putting us enemy wants to put us in two different camps here. So we started looking into suffering in the Bible. Of course, there’s plenty of it, and ask God to create intimacy in this place of grief. You know, Lord, how are you going to do that? So of course, the stories in the Bible job and Paul and others, we started reading those every Sunday night at 730. We would get the get on the couch and we’re like, okay, let’s, you know, a lot of times I couldn’t talk much, I would just cry and Clint would just pray for me and pray for healing to come and then I have to say, you know, I was taking like a grief Class and Class really came alongside me. There was a night where they invited other people to come besides the person who was grieving and like Clint came with me. And he’s like, I want to learn, I want to know about this. And he met other husbands whose wives had lost dramatically. And we realize, you know, God, really? I mean, yeah, there’s an 85% divorce rate for couples who go through trauma. So we didn’t want to be that statistic again, and we just decided to, you know, it was hard. It was, I won’t, you know, we will also know, knew that we’ve been honest about everything else. Let’s just be gut wrenchingly honest with others. We stepped up, we took our ministry, we put it on hold for a year, we just said no, we’re just gonna make sure we’re healing ourselves in our marriage. And we just set everything aside for that year. Wow. That’s, yeah, I mean, it’s, yeah, it’s just the story of so many. I’ve had so much pain, and it’s so hard to, like you said relate to each other when either of you. I mean, you’re dealing with it differently. It’s also affecting both of you very differently. And I love that you said you were you really studied grief. We had to Yeah. And you know, Clint was ready, sooner than I was for ministry. And so what we did, because I just was nowhere near, you know, able to do anything, he started leading a husband’s group, he said, Do you mind at first I was kind of like, how could you do that? And then I thought, no, you know, he is he’s more ready. So he went, and he just ministered to some husbands for a couple months. And they started coming, you know, to a weekly class. And we had never done anything like that. And then it was God was just opening up a new way for him, you know, to serve. And so I just blessed him in that I said, I’m not there with you yet. But I bless you in being able to do that now. And, and he was really patient about waiting for me to until, until I could say like, Okay, I’m ready to do this again. Yeah. Wow. And I and I think it was so wise that you spent that time to really, I mean, expose yourself to the grief, not ignore it, or try to push it away, but actually allow, allow that process to happen and be really honest about it. Yeah, you know, Bill it too, I think we had to look for ways to stay connected. So one of the about a year and a half, maybe two years after we had lost my brother, Clint is a videographer and he videotapes, testimonies. And so I came to him one day, and I said, You know what, I’m ready to talk about this. Because I know that the statistics for suicide are just alarming. And I said, there has to be even one other person is it? So would you film my story of of grief and suicide, grief, and you know what that was like. And so that was the way for us, for me to still tell my story for Clint to participate in it. And for us to stay connected through it, that was just one tangible way God gave us to stay connected. Is that something that we could find? Like, could I link that on the on the show notes page and get let people see that? It is? Yeah, okay. I can get you that link. But it’s at except for those who weep calm, but I’ll send you the link for sure. Yes. And I imagine that you probably have a resources that can like we can point people to that either know, people that have been in this or are in it themselves. Yeah,

38:37
yeah, we do have a grief response journal that we put together, because one of the things that I realized were for, there weren’t a lot of resources out there, just a lot of shame for people and as like, know that we’re, you know, struggling. So I put together my artwork and some articles on grief and put together a response journal. So I can give you that link as well. I just want people to know that they are not alone in their grief. You know, it’s grief is such an isolating thing. Yes. Yeah. So yes, that is really huge. And such a needed resource, since it’s such needed exposure and light about it, to talk about it and actually understand it. And I think it’s also really helpful for those of us that haven’t gone through significant grief to know even what to say how to relate if we should say anything. I mean, because I didn’t know I mean, I think the things I said to people are God’s going to use this for His glory and like, well, that’s great. But when you’re, when you’ve just lost, you know, you don’t even wanna, I remember somebody saying that to me, and I thought, How many times have I said that to somebody trying to comfort them, but it was like, that’s not comforting. It’s not comfy. Yeah. I think sometimes our hugs and our embraces can say more than our words can Wow. Yep. And there’s almost like a lot of times when you’re with someone that’s grieving, there’s almost this pressure that you feel like I have to say something that’s going to fix this right away. Yeah. And I mean, what? You know if you could speak to that even just for a second, what would Yeah, what do you think is the best kind of approach to someone who’s in grief? Well, a friend said to me, I said, I feel like such a wreck. I said, feel like a train wreck. And she said, You know what, you can be a wreck until you’re not. And I thought, How brilliant is that? Just really, she was the first person that gave me the grace to grieve. And then it’s okay. It’s okay to grieve and and your your normal to grieve, you feel so abnormal when you’re grieving, you know, and society doesn’t really allow for you to be bawling your eyes out in the grocery store, or even at church sometimes. And so I think just giving people the grace to grieve, and saying, there’s no timeline on it, you, you know, you have that grace to just grieve in whatever way it looks like. Because grief does make you do strange things. Like, I go out to the ocean all the time on like, my brother’s birthday, and I’ll, I’ll carve his name in the sand, and I’ll put some flowers in the ocean. And I’m sure people look at me and think, What is that about, you know, what’s she doing out there, but it’s part of that mourning and grieving and, and, you know, you do those kinds of things, because you’re grieving and you’re remembering your loved ones. So I think giving people the grace degree, they’re not trying to feel like you have to say the perfect thing that’s going to snap them out of it. Just reminding them that you’re there, hey, if you need to talk or you don’t need to talk, I’m here, I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere, as long as for as long as it takes, I am not going anywhere. That’s powerful. That’s so good. And that. I mean, you can relate that, wherever you are in, in respect to grieving, whether you are the person that’s grieving, whether you’re married to the person that’s grieving, whether you’re a friend or acquaintance, or even how to pray for them that they feel free to grieve. And you know, with divorce to Bella, I mean, divorce carries its own grief. And it’s Yeah, society doesn’t recognize that they look at you like, oh, you signed the papers, you should be happy now you’re free from your your grieving, you’re grieving the loss of that marriage. And a lot of people don’t understand what what divorce people go through, they go through the grief, and it’s like, the other person is still alive, but they’re still grieving, you know? Yes. Because it almost feels like I mean, every I think about this with my parents who divorced when I was 20 have five kids. I mean, it just, they had an entirely huge life together. And then it ended and then every memory that should have been positive and fun and full of excitement and joy is now tainted with this, you know, sadness and shame and guilt and regret. And I mean, even including their kids, because the spouse is there with their kids. So there’s a whole lot of grieving. That happens. I mean, I was fortunate enough that I divorced when I didn’t have that much history with that person. And and I think every every divorce, he has to bring that before God and and be able to grieve that and be able to let him heal that. Yes, you

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know, there’s a scene in the Bible and I need to look up to where it is or Samuel or say about David and the warriors at Ziklag. They go, they’ve returned for more, you know, here they are, the studly King and all his warriors and the cities have been taken hostage, their their, you know, loved ones have been dragged away, not necessarily killed, but dragged away. And it says that they weeped until they could weep no more. And I thought these were men, these were warriors. And they weeped until they could weep no more. So I’m like, Yeah, you know, let’s talk about the grace degree right there if a warrior king David needed to cry as her out when he lost his son, and hey, you know, yeah, we have the privilege sometimes I think the church I mean, we don’t do it intentionally. But there’s, there’s not like that. We need to have a row for people who need to whale or something. Because you feel kind of dumb as you’re like, trying to blot your eyes and you’re balling. Yeah, sorry, I’m grieving right now. And there’s no apology needed. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of times in the church, we feel like we need to make it better because that’s what we’re doing where the hands of Jesus we are making things better, you know? But, I mean, a lot of times Jesus, when he found out the Lazarus was dead, he cried. You know, he grieved and and he didn’t just go, he didn’t even go right away and fix it. He went, I think it was three days away. Yeah, well, yeah, of, of everyone grieving. This whole thing was, you know, everyone was grieving and yet, he could have fixed it. With a snap of his fingers, I mean, there’s so much more we could talk about how not to be offended at God and how to stay close to him. Yeah, so I, thank you so much for sharing this because I think this is a huge, a huge situation that people find themselves in. Yeah. And you know, it is when you click on the news, like my little Yahoo News thing came up, and it had all these tragedies listed. And now I look at that differently. And I think, Oh, those families, and you know, those marriages, and thankfully, now, here we are four and a half years down the road, and God has allowed us to serve some of those families. I have a group of women who come once a month, and they’re dealing with the tragedy of murder, suicide, suicide, homicide, accidental death, and you want to talk about holy ground. I mean, here are these women, you’re a mom, you know, what, what would it be like to lose a child to that tragedy? So, you know, I say all that, because God, He really does. He’s a tender God. And even though we don’t understand some of the things that happen, he will meet us in the midst of those tragedies, and comfort, and just bring his comfort and his healing. So if you’re a listener who has experienced something that you don’t understand, because I still don’t understand my brother’s suicide, it’s still Yeah, no mystery. There’s a lot of things about that day that I don’t know, we’ll never know, you know, I just know he’s in heaven. I know, he, he’s, and I know, I’ll see him again. And I know there’s a God who cares about those who are her grieving. Yeah. Yeah. And I also like, I know, we have so much more I want to get through on this. But one thing you said earlier is about how your brother bravely fought mental illness for so many years. And, and that was something I had no sense of at all. And it was so easy for me to judge people that struggle with mental illness because I had no idea what was going on. And it wasn’t until I had my second child, and I went through something called postpartum psychosis, which is very rare, but as, but it happens. Yeah. Sounds like you’ve heard of it. Yes. I have an I have friends who have gone through it. It is I mean, I bet it turns you upside down and inside upside down? Absolutely. Yep. And there’s so much stigma on it, to know that that shame that, you know, we don’t talk about those kinds of things. And yet, it’s a very real thing. Yeah, happened. It is and, and I will not ever, I understand suicide in a very different way than I ever did ever, ever, ever. And I was closer than I ever thought I ever could be here. So it’s by the grace of God that I’m still here. But I know that if you know anyone, or have heard of anyone in suicide, or if you hear things on the news, I mean, just check your heart just for empathy, just prayer and empathy right away, because we just don’t know, we just don’t,

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we don’t, you know, we don’t I can remember my brother’s phone calls when he you know, cuz he had talked about this, and we did all the things you’re supposed to do, you know, they have a plan and call one 800 You know, suicide and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And I would hear him just the agony of the darkness of feeling alone of feeling like it wasn’t going to get any better. And God has kept that kind of fresh in my mind. Because we don’t know the person that you could be you could be listening to this podcast right now I don’t know in your car are somewhere and look to the left or to the right. And there could be someone right there who said, you know, if something doesn’t give today, that’s it. I’m you know, and to those who feel that temptation to just end it. Let me tell you the pain you’re you’re choosing what temp permanent solution to a temporary problem. And that sounds so darn trite, but it’s true. It’s really true. Yeah, yep, yep. Yep. And, and I also am so grateful that you have ministries that support people in these scenarios. And I also just want to speak to anyone close to considering this, that expose it to the lions. It’s hard. It’s embarrassing. It’s shameful. I mean, if you feel all those feelings, but it’s worth it. I believe you can be brave enough to expose this to the light to get people involved. And if the first person doesn’t know how to empathetically and support you and know how to love you the right way and then move on to the Got a message and just keep going. It’s really within the grace that God has given you to do that you can do that. That’s powerful, that’s powerful. Again, I’m so grateful for you sharing this. And I’m just going to be in prayer that this is going to reach the right people, and people will share it with the right people and, and this message will continue to spread. Well, I know that we serve a God of hope. And the time that I spent after going through the postpartum psychosis in recovery was a long time, it was many months, and I was looking at my journal just the other day that I kept during that time. And, man, you so cling to God, when you just have no other alternative. I think God sometimes allows those seasons in our lives that we really are broken, we’re in such pain, we’re in such challenging situations. And I think he can use them, to bring us closer to himself, to teach us things to give us empathy, to grow us. I don’t know where you are along the lines of any of this, whether any of this rings home. But I know that none of us live in a bubble. And we’re all affected by what other people are going through. And God set it up that way. So I hope that this has given you an opportunity to peer into someone else’s story, to care about someone else’s life and to have hope that God can bring healing, that he can bring people out of the depths of despair. And I love how we even started the conversation with Penny about Psalms. You know, there were so much beauty in so much of what we talked about, and reconciliation after such hardship and all that. And then to have such a horrible experience, that’s not uncommon. But then to see that even in the midst of the amount of agony, the Psalmist went through, he would still say, and yet I will praise you. Why is my soul downcast trust in God. So I just encourage you, wherever you are, to pray, first of all, for the people listening to this broadcast, that they would be encouraged that they would have hope. And secondly, to pray for your own heart, that when you have the opportunity to encourage someone else, that you would give them the space to grieve, you would give them the space to be a wreck until they’re not. And I also want to speak to those who are in grief

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that you can trust people to help you carry this burden. There are trustworthy people that love you that care about you. And if you want to start that conversation, I would just encourage you to ask them to listen to this and have that conversation, following up to find people who can carry you in this grief, who can pray for you, and love on you and give you the space to be a wreck when you need to be. Thank you so much for listening. And I just pray that God would impact every listener today. Because ultimately, everything about this life is temporary. And if we’re not making movements towards eternity, and our home with Jesus, what are we doing anyway? So I just encourage you, God bless you. Thank you for listening to this, this challenging episode and I pray that it would impact your heart. Looking forward to talking to you again on Tuesday, Penny has a lot more to share, even about intimacy in the midst of all of this and how her marriage survived this intense time. God bless you. I’ll talk to you soon.

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Thanks for listening. If you’ve been blessed by this, why not share it? Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion

 

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