I don't know who I am anymore.
Have you said that to yourself since your child died? So much of our identity is interlaced with the people we love. Especially a human that was brought into the world and created out of love for another to start a family and grow together. The dreams that form in anticipation of the baby arriving, watching the stages of life unfold, holding their hands, then walking beside them through life make life worth living.
Then one day life changes. The dream fades. And we're left with the pieces.
Don't go anywhere today friend, stick with me because I want to help you rebuild the foundation of your identity.
I'm inviting you today to spend one hour with me in a Live Grief Masterclass. The date is August 5th, 2024 Register Here!
It's a free class that will help you:
1. Discover peace in the chaos of your grief, no more feeling lost.
2. I will equip you with tools through your journey, that will help remove the overwhelm.
3. And most of all, help you see hope for your future. And that my friend will help you have the confidence that you are going to make it.
When you're grieving the two most important things you need, is God's word and community. And this class offers you both. Hit the link below to register.
The Grief Masterclass with Teresa Davis
Not sure you can attend live? Go a head and register so you will automatically recieve the replay.
I'm giving away door prizes for those that attend live.
I want to see you there! Use this oppurtunity to get the help you need to process your grief. We will spend one hour in God's word learning what He has to say about surviving the death of your child.
Register For The Grief Masterclass with The Grief Mentor Here
The next Grief Mentor Support Group is August 15th! This is a safe place for bereaved parents to come and just be with like minded grieving parents who understand what its like to have your child leave this earth.
How do you attend? Become a Grief Mentor Insider, and follow the directions found in the newsletter.
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Email me at teresa@thegriefmentor.com
I don't know who I am anymore. Have you said that to yourself since your child died? So much of our identity is interlaced with the people we love, especially a human that was brought into the world and created out of love for another to start a family and grow together. The dreams that form in anticipation of the baby arriving, watching the stages of life unfold, holding their hands, then walking beside them through life. Some one day life changes, the dream fades, and we're left with the pieces. Don't go anywhere today, friends. Stick with me because I want to help you rebuild the foundation of your identity. Are you lost in the chaos of grief, struggling to find your way in the darkness? Are you asking yourself, will I ever be able to enjoy life again? Are you wondering where God is right now? Welcome to The Grief mentor show. This podcast is a safe place for you. It will shine a light into the shadows, helping you discover that joy and pain can coexist, that you still have purpose, and there is a path to peace. Hello, friend. I'm Teresa Davis. I, too, was lost in the chaos of grief the day my son died. Just like you, I longed for peace in this unfamiliar world. I longed for the way, crushing my chest to be lifted so I could breathe. I clung tightly to the anger, and it was there that I discovered the tools I needed to navigate life after loss. And I'm ready to help you do the same. If you're ready, I'm holding my hand out to your friend. Let me show you the way, one step at a time. And clarity when life doesn't turn out like we expect is challenging. When your child dies, the very foundation that you built your life upon is shaken. It might even have a few cracks, mind sure did. On August 5th, I'm hosting a free workshop to help you find clarity. Grief is like being swept up by the winds of our tornado. That is total chaos, but on the outside, you look the same to everyone else. But on the inside, you're struggling to survive, reaching and grabbing for anything to stop the awful pain that's become your reality day in and day out, knowing where to start is exhausting. How do I know? Because I've been there, friend. This is a free master class and I'll give you the steps that you need to find a way out of the chaos that you're living in. You have to start somewhere. I'll give you those steps. Register for the class, even if you think you're not going to be able to attend life. Check that email I sent you this morning and click the button to register and save your seat and watch the video and it has a few more details about our time together. Have a grief mentor insider, no worries, found a link for the master class in the show notes. I want to meet you so that I can put a face with your name. I dropped my phone this past weekend in a body of water. Yeah, I know. Not good. It was there about 45 minutes before somebody could retrieve it safely for me. I still don't have a working cell phone. So if you have reached out to me and I have not responded in a timely manner, this is why. I try to respond within 24 hours to all the messages that I receive, either by email or even social media, but because I don't have access while I'm at work, it may take a little longer for me to respond. But this has been a challenge for sure this these last few days, but it's also been a time of learning for me because my phone's a time sucker and I know that's not breaking news to you, however, you know, and I know that having knowledge is not the same as living it. So I learned that not only is my phone an endless distraction, but it robs me peaceful moments. My time with Jesus has been sweeter in these last several days, as I have found myself more relaxed. Even though I had the same amount of tasks to complete, I didn't hear my phone buzz in with all those alerts. It's difficult to sit in the presence of the Holy Spirit when you're constantly being tempted to respond to the demands of your phone. Finding a way to silence that interruption is imperative to having a long time with Jesus. Going forward when I get my phone back, I plan to use that do not disturb option during the day so that I can totally focus on what's right in front of me. Being still in grief is a challenge, isn't it? I remember my counselor in the first few weeks of Andrew's death. He would say to me, Teresa, can you just be still because I was reading every book I could get my hands on. I was searching and grabbing for answers to calm this inner turmoil that I was living in every day, but I wasn't getting the results that I needed, but it was a cycle that just kept repeating itself over and over. Are you nodding in agreement right now? If is an assault, it's a wound, and it's not a superficial wound. This is what I want to teach you today, friend. Discovering who you are after your child dies starts with you acknowledging who you were before you came into the world. Let's put this into perspective so you can grasp it. You came into this world with nothing. Genesis 3, 19b says, for just you are, and just you will return. The death of your child is a reminder of how true that fact is. Let's take a few moments and let's define what a personality is versus what an identity is. Your personality is behavior, your temperament, like your habits. Your personality, though, is not you. Your personality is how you act, and you can change your personality if you want to. Your identity, however, is a literal sense of who you are, the things that make you you. One part of your identity is the things that you see on your driver's license. Your race, your gender, the color of your hair. I want to talk to you about a different type of identity today. I want to talk to you about your self-identity. Our beliefs about the world and our actual experiences shapes our values, which in turn form our identities. Your self-identity is who and what you see yourself as, and then your values is what you live your life by. Your identity is composed of what drives you, your principles, your core values. How you view your identity in Christ determines how you will process your grief. Let me break this down for you. In order for you to know your identity in Christ, you must first understand who Jesus is. And for instance, in my experience, that is where most of us get stuck. If we don't know and understand who Jesus is, we will never understand our identity in Christ. Colossians 1, 15 through 17 new living translation puts it this way. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. For through Him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things that we can't see, such as thrones and kingdoms and rulers and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through Him and for Him. Genesis 1, 26 says, "Let us make human beings in our image to be like us." Jesus is the most complete example of what a human looks like in God's image. When we belong to Jesus, we reflect Him in the mirror. You might be same. Teresa, why does all this matter to me and my grief give me a minute because we're getting there? Your image, the reflection of what you see in the mirror determines how you see your identity in Christ. This is my challenge for you today. Trade what you see for what God sees because friend, this is your true reflection. And I'm going to try to help you see that today. Your identity in Christ is the most important identity you have because this identity determines your view of everything, including your view of death and life. It's the filter from which you not only process life, but it drives your beliefs, which in turn drives your actions and decisions. Your identity in Christ is based on who you believe the Father/Son and the Holy Spirit are. That's how you view them determines how you view yourself. So what does God say about you, friend? Your identity in Christ is your belief that you are beloved child of God, that He loves you so much that He gave His only Son to save you from eternal separation from Himself. And that includes your child. So my question for you today is, do you believe you are a beloved child of God, made in His image whom He loves so much that He gave the Son to die for you and your child? It all starts there, friend. We often get confused about who we are because we get caught up in the confusion that we are who we are based on our circumstances. Let me say that again. We often get confused about our identity because we get caught up in the confusion that who we are is based on our circumstances. Your identity is not based on a circumstance. Your identity is based on the unchanging fact that you are a child of God. All your other identities is based on this one fact and it's unchanging. Friend, often when I sit in front of a grieving mother, so many times I hear the comment, I don't know who I am anymore. This is why I'm doing this episode today because I hear it so frequently and I want to help you understand what identity in Christ means. You see, you will always be your child's mother or child's father, regardless if they are walking this earth or if they're spending eternity already with Jesus in heaven. But you are here walking planet earth. So my job, what God has called me to do is to help give you the tools to be able to process your grief and live from a place of purpose, a place where you decide life is still worth living. And in order to be able to do that friend, you must understand your identity. It is the foundation from which you build your life upon. So when the circumstances change, your identity in Christ remains the same and that will be the rock that holds you steady. Let me put this in perspective. In the days following the death of your child, the emotions are indescribable, right? Yeah, I know that if we were sitting across from one another, you would be nodding your head in agreement. But one thing I distinctly remember about my journey is how alone I felt. Can you relate to that? It was if I was at the end of a long, dark tunnel and there was no one there but me. Just me. No one else. Not my family, not God, no one. That's how I felt because I sure couldn't see God in those moments. It was the most alone I've ever felt in my life. Do you remember what I said at the beginning of the teaching piece? Discovering who you are after your child starts with you being able to acknowledge who you were when you came into this world. You came into this world with nothing for just you are, just you shall return. And that's exactly how I felt at the end of that long, dark tunnel. You may have heard me say before that grief strips you down to the bear. The bear me. That's how I felt. That removes all the fluff in our lives, all the things that we think make us who we are. Grief takes that away. The truth is friend, the people in your life does not make you you. The circumstances in your life does not make you who you are. The people in our life enrich our life and in imagining life without those people that we cherish and hold dear seems impossible until you face what you and I are facing today. And that is life without our child. Being able to survive the impossible, the unthinkable starts with knowing and understanding who you are at the foundational level. I'm reading the book of Daniel right now and I've read it before, but I couldn't get past the first chapter this time. I read it over and over because sometimes that's what it takes friend. Each time I read it, I asked God to reveal to me what He wanted me to know from it. And this is what He showed me. Daniel was taken from his homeland against his will. It was everything he'd ever known. He was probably about 17 years old and the king of Babylon seized Jerusalem and he took Jerusalem captive and he took them all back to the city of Babylon. It was a city that did not honor Daniel's God. He ordered his chief of staff to bring him some young men of Judah's royal family. But only the strong ones he said, the ones in good health, good looking young man, he said, make sure they're smart and of good judgment and suited to serve. Daniel was one of four. The king's desire was to destroy Daniel's identity as he knew it. I couldn't help but relate this to our grief. Just like us, Daniel was thrown into unfamiliar circumstances. The king was attempting to strip him of everything that made Daniel who he was. Number one, he removed his comfort. He took him to a place that he didn't want to go. Number two, then he changed his name so he could destroy the foundation from which Daniel had built his life upon. And number three, he made a plan to training for three years to mold and to make him into the person that he determined Daniel would be. But this is what the king didn't count on. Daniel knew his true identity. It is circumstances in the face of adversity with all the comforts he had ever known being removed. He chose to remain true to his God given identity. The scripture says Daniel was determined to remain true to who he was. He could not control that he was living in a foreign land that did not honor his God. He could not control that the power that was now controlling his life changed his name. But he could control what he put in his mouth. Because to Daniel, that meant everything. Food was a big deal in those days because of all the rules that the Jewish people live within regarding what they put in their mouths. He remained true to who he was. And because of that, the scripture says that God gave the chief of staff both respect and affection for Daniel. But here's the thing, guys. You see, Daniel didn't have a playbook that God had given him that says when this happens to do this or when that happens to do this instead, he didn't lay it all out on a spreadsheet so that he knew exactly what to do and what steps to take. Now, that's not how God works, Prem. God gives you what you need in the moment when you need it. That's how God works Daniel made a decision to be true to his God. And the only way he could do that was knowing what his true identity was despite his circumstances. Friend, if you surrender your will to his will, if you say yes to Jesus, nothing can change the fact that you are a child of God. That is your true reflection in the mirror. Just like Daniel, when I was standing at the end of that dark tunnel, the only thing that remained was me and Jesus, and that fact alone is how you rebuild your life back. How you rebuild your identity after your child dies. It starts with the right foundation and goes from there. That's one of the things that we delve into in the grief roadmap in module five is what have you built your foundation upon truth or lies? Think about it this way. When a house is falling down, the roof is leaking, the walls are leaning, the floors on level, what's the first place a contractor will look to see if it's worth repairing? Yeah, you're right. If you said foundation, because they look at the foundation that the house was built upon. If the foundation has cracks, then the process of restoration starts there. Friend, I know that your personal story of grief is much more complex than what we've covered today in the podcast, but here is what my hope and prayer is for you. That listening today, you heard something that you can relate to and that it will start directing your thoughts toward the fact that your identity is rooted and grounded in the God, the Father, in His Word, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And that foundation does not change when your circumstances change. He knows your name and you belong to Him. Living from that place means that you will survive and not only survive, but have purpose for your life. So when the thought comes to you, I don't know who I am anymore. This is what you tell the enemy. You tell him the truth. I am a child of God. I belong to Him. He knows my name and nothing can separate me from Him. He goes before me and He follows me. He has placed His blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand. I could never escape from His Spirit, I could never get away from His presence if I go to heaven, His there. If I go down to the grave, His there, if I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell in the farthest of oceans, even there His hand will guide me and His strength will support me. Psalms 139, "If you are struggling, if you are like me and you're standing at the end of that dark tunnel and you feel the most alone that you have ever felt in your life, come join me on August 5th. Let me give you the steps that you need to start moving in the direction that removes that overwhelm that helps you see light in the darkness to help you see hope for your future. Go to your email that I sent you this morning. Click the link to save your seat. If you're not a grief mentor insider, go to the show notes and click the link to register. I'll see you August 5th. And that's all I have for you today. So until next time, take care. Did today's episode touch your heart? If it did, would you take a moment and leave a review on Apple Podcast? I read every single one. Scroll all the way down past all of the episodes till you come to a place where you can leave five stars. And would you go a step further and write a written review? It would mean the world to me if you did. Would you mind to share today's episode with somebody that you know that needs a ray of light in their grief journey? I would so appreciate it if you did, from my heart to yours. [Music]
