Grief

The past two weeks I've been attending WorldVenture's Home Assignment Debrief. I truly appreciate that my mission sees value in giving us structured time in which they give us updates on changes at the home office, we reflect on our last few years in small groups, and we generally have lots of time to rest, free from speaking engagements and support raising. One of the sessions today was on the topic of mourning. People experience loss every day; missionaries' grief is often compounded when regular losses (keys, fire, job change, death, ...) collide with extra losses (moving overseas, family traditions, home culture, home language, favorite food, everything familiar, ...).

As part of our session, we looked at Jesus' grief in four different passages: Matthew 14, John 11, Luke 19:41, and Hebrews 5:7. We had to look at the WHAT and the HOW Jesus mourned these various losses and see what we could apply to our own lives. The main thought that stood out to me was a very simple truth - it's possible for even the same person to grieve differently each time.

Taking this and applying it to the TCK's I work with, I was a bit overwhelmed to think that
1. these kids encounter tons of losses for so young a life
2. each time they grieve, it may look completely different from the last time
3. our campus has 320 of these individuals who may grieve completely differently each time.

How do I prepare for that? How can I possibly offer each TCK I work with exactly what he or she needs in that moment of grief? The answer is I can't. My job is the same as it every was: to be a vessel, a channel of God's grace to them so that HE can offer them exactly what they need. According to our session today, one of the biggest graceful acts I can do is to simply give them permission to grieve. No one wants to lose, and no one wants to mourn, but it is hard to avoid. Especially for TCK's.

Please pray with me as I work through grieving my own losses, minor though they may be (see previous posts), and even more, pray that I can best serve my TCK's who mourn.