The Church and Grief: You Don’t Have to Walk Alone
In this series, we will explore the unique joys and difficulties we encounter as Hope Moms when re-engaging with church after loss, and seek to help the Church (leaders, members, and ministries) understand how they can come alongside the grieving mother to provide hope, healing, and community in the midst of such great sorrow.
I stood on the stage, belly protruding and a microphone in my hand. I was excited to sing a solo that December day since it would be the last time I would help lead worship at my church because of my “maternity break.” My baby boy was pressing on my diaphragm, making singing harder and harder. The music started and I began my song. I sang a song of Mary as she anticipated the birth of her baby boy, Jesus. I sang and rubbed my belly, burgeoning with my baby boy.
Then he was gone. Instead of welcoming a baby boy on Christmas Eve like Mary did, I buried my boy.
And the church watched.
While I was in labor, women from my small group arrived and prayed for me. They didn’t have the right words to say, so they prayed.
My pastor, whose wife was at home pregnant with their son, arrived and offered encouraging words I can recall more than 23 years later.
The elders from my church sat uncomfortably in my living room and listened to my grieving words. None of them had experienced the loss of a child, but they listened and offered to bathe my family in prayer.
Women from church somehow planned a funeral for my son without any input from me —I was too numb to think.
My church family came alongside me in my grief. So many couldn’t relate to my specific type of loss, but they loved me through it. They didn’t question my motives when I stopped working in the church nursery. They let me sit and cry during worship instead of asking me to stand on stage and lead. They showed up on my doorstep with food for my family. They offered to watch my older daughters so I could have time to grieve, however I needed to do that.
They showed me the compassion of Christ and offered me comfort in the days of uncertainty and great loss.
Not everyone got it right. A few said or did hurtful things, but I don’t think they meant to. They just didn’t know what to say or do. They were trying to offer comfort. Their hurtful words were meant to be loving and kind. I learned not to take offense.
As loving as the church body was to let me “sit this one out,” they were also loving when it was time to “get back in the game.” Three months after my son’s death was, honestly, too soon to get up on the stage to lead worship, but I did it because I wanted normalcy. My team members loved me during worship practice when I became emotional, and they waited until the tears left my eyes and my voice.
About eight months after my son died, a pastor’s wife from another church, who had also lost a child, called to ask me to join the leadership team for a ministry I had been a part of in past years. I can still hear the gentleness in her voice as she encouraged me to take on the leadership role. She said it was at about the 8-month mark when she started to reengage, and she shared how it helped her to help others.
No one pushed me, but they encouraged me. They loved me and allowed me to step in and out of activities as my grief allowed. What I started to see was that as I stepped in more and more, I lost the need to step out.
Going through loss without community would have been unbearable. I am grateful for loving people who came alongside me to encourage me and care for me—even if they made mistakes along the way.
Dear Mama, if you are grieving and struggling against the temptation to pull away from your church family, please don’t. People may not get it right every time, but I believe Jesus followers will help you during this time.
Dear Mama, if you are a Hope Mom without a church family, I encourage you to find one. Reach out to another Hope Mom and ask to go with her. Being engulfed and encompassed with the love and care of a church body is so important as we journey down the path of loss. It can seem like a lonely path to walk, but you don’t have to walk it alone.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-5
- Shelly
Hope Mom to Zachary Robert
Shelly D. Templin is an author, speaker and blogger that shares a message of hope—with humor. She has three daughters, a son-in-law, and a granddaughter. Shelly lives in Texas with her husband, Jack, of 29 years and their two dogs.
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