GriefShare: Providing a Community to Process Loss

Grief is a deeply personal journey, and no two people experience it quite the same way. But at St. Andrew’s Little Rock, those grappling with loss find community and comfort in what they have in common. As they do, GriefShare group leaders Suzanne McDonald and Gail Douglas pray they will encounter the Holy Spirit at work in them.

Suzanne’s and Gail’s path to this ministry has been colored by their own losses. “In 2006, I lost my daughter, a 38-year-old mother and wife, to suicide. And a friend of mine recommended GriefShare at her church,” Suzanne shares. She accepted the invitation. In hindsight, “I don’t think I could have made it without that.”

GriefShare, a ministry of Church Initiative, provides a 13-week small group program that helps people apply biblical principles as they deal with the emotions and life stresses following the death of a loved one. Groups are hosted by churches throughout the country and facilitated by volunteers.

Experiencing how this ministry helped her in the wake of loss gave Suzanne a desire to be one of these volunteers along with her husband, Ed, who had served as head of pastoral care at Baptist Health System. In 2013, they began the group at St. Andrew’s Little Rock, which they’d joined three years earlier.

They invited Gail, a fellow member of St. Andrew’s, to join them in facilitating the group. She too had faced several losses and said yes to the opportunity to help others process their grief. “I just felt drawn to the program,” Gail recalls.

Since then, they’ve led numerous groups comprised of participants from St. Andrew’s and from the larger community. Though most come from Christian backgrounds, not all do. All are welcome.

“It has been a wonderful ministry,” Suzanne shares. “We’ve had several people join our church because they came to our groups.”

Each session involves watching a video, followed by an intermission and time to discuss that week’s topics as well as things that have happened since the last session. “It’s a beautiful way to discuss losses, and each person is different,” Gail shares. “Each person has a different relationship with the person they lost. Sometimes there’s anger, and sometimes there’s love. We go through all of those emotions through the 13 weeks.” Though the sessions are made to work together, “Each of the sessions is designed that they can stand alone, so you can join at any time.”

GriefShare provides a space where all of the emotions of grief are accepted, from sadness to anger to guilt, and where it’s OK to talk or to remain silent. “We respect where everybody’s coming from,” Suzanne says.

Through all of it, participants realize that others have similar stories and, as they process their losses, they have opportunities to help those facing what they’ve faced. “It forms a community,” Suzanne says, explaining that members can share freely, knowing that others won’t talk about it outside of the group. “‘What we say here stays here’ is our little motto.”

Sessions include invitations to talk about aspects of grief that many may be reluctant to wrestle with. “One of the sessions does talk about being mad at God,” Gail shares. “We acknowledge the fact that you might go through a period where God seems far away from you. And that’s OK. We’re not there to judge.”

Suzanne and Gail are also not there to provide professional mental health care. Suzanne shares, “If we sense that someone needs extra help, we will talk to them after class and suggest that they see a counselor. Because we’re not counselors. We’re facilitators. We hear our person’s stories and thoughts and feelings.”

Some participants, like one man who was part of a recent group, initially come thinking they’re attending for the sake of someone else, but end up finding help they didn’t know they needed. He brought a friend dealing with loss but discovered struggles of his own that had been stuffed down. “It’s been helping him on his journey,” Suzanne shares. “That’s been a precious thing to see this year.”

Groups often include several repeat participants, whom Suzanne and Gail welcome, recognizing that many people benefit in different ways at different points on their journeys. “Maybe the first time they came, the death had just occurred,” Gail says. “And then they come back the next year and say, ‘I didn’t hear that last time. That is so helpful to me where I am right now.’”

They share about a woman who deeply struggled following her husband’s death and attended several GriefShare groups. For some time, she insisted, “I don’t want to not cry. I don’t want to be in a better place.”

“But she kept coming,” Gail recalls. During the second session, they sensed a change in her. “She finally started warming up. And before the end of the session, she had put on makeup. She was dressing differently, and you could just see the smile on her face.” By the third session, she was in a much better place.

In addition to repeat participants in St. Andrew’s GriefShare group, some group members get close to one another and continue to connect with one another outside of the group. This has been the case for Suzanne, who still meets two or three times a year with someone from the group she attended in 2006.

Though they’ve been leading GriefShare groups for over a decade, Suzanne and Gail say they still benefit each time. “I’ve just found that it really helps me,” Gail shares. “I get more out of it every time, I think, maybe than the participants. It’s just been a real sweet, special time to be able to meet new people, to learn how to help.”

Since the group at St. Andrew’s began, Suzanne experienced another significant loss when Ed passed away. But, as she brings this loss to her ministry as a leader, she does so with gratitude that she and Ed could serve together. “I just feel so thankful that I was introduced to [GriefShare] back in 2006 and able to share it. Ed had this sweet countenance that he presented to people. … He had just a sweet gentleness about him. … So, I’m just thankful the two of us got to [lead GriefShare] along with Gail.”

As they facilitate, both women are praying for guidance so that, as Suzanne says, “every time we go, what we say is pleasing to the Lord.”

Gail adds, “Our prayer is that everyone that comes will feel the Holy Spirit is working with them. Because that’s what we’re there for. We’re there as our hands.”

Suzanne likens it to the bread and fish that Jesus multiplied to feed 5,000. “We’ve supplied the loaves.”

They’re also asking God to bring others who could fill their shoes. “We would love for people to come along behind us to take over after we retire from this ministry,” Suzanne says, adding that more leaders would allow St. Andrew’s to host an additional group each year.

Suzanne tells others considering starting a GriefShare group, “Go for it. Start it. I mean, it’s a wonderful ministry. It not only helps people in your church, but because people go online and find this, it’ll bring people into your church that maybe have not been going to church. I would highly recommend it.”

Suzanne and Gail are eager to help members of AMiA churches who are interested in starting their own GriefShare groups. Connect with them at suz45smith@yahoo.com and gailhd@swbell.net.