Why?
When your child dies the question that we all face is why? It is by far the number one question that child loss brings. Then in your own mind you start to process that why, and the things you come up with is as individual as your grief. Who is your finger pointing at today? Is it yourself? Is it someone else? Is it God? Is it your child? Maybe you don't even know who's to blame. But your heart seeks to make sense of it all, and you're exhausted from it. It can keep you in a place of despair that never gets resolved. I hope and pray that you walk away today with a new set of eyes.
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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When our child dies, the question that we all face is why it is by far the number one question that child loss brings. Then in your own mind, you start to process that why and the things that you come up with is this individual as your grief. Who is your finger pointing at today? Is it yourself? Is it someone else? Is it God? Is it your child? Maybe you don't even know who to blame, but your heart seeks to make sense of it all and your exhausted from it. It can keep you in a place of despair that never gets resolved. Stay tuned. I hope and pray that you walk away today with a new set of eyes. 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 anchor, 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. We're less than a week away. If you're not registered for the Grief Masterclass, make sure you do it today. There's still time. If you're already registered, I sent you an email yesterday that has the link for your workbook. Open that email and print your workbook so you'll be ready on the 5th. If you want to sign up today, open the email that I sent you this morning. If you're a Grief Mentor insider, hit the link and add your email. It's that simple to save your seat and then you'll get an email the day before on August 4th. With the link for the call and the workbook. This is my first time to do this, guys, and I would love your support in showing up. It's free and there's going to be door prizes. If you can make it live, I'll see you August 5th. The time will be according to your time zone and that information will be in your email. I should have never left them home alone. I should have never said that. I should have never moved. I should have never had that conversation. I should have never set those hard boundaries. I should have never. What is your feeling the blank? My question for you today is, what does every one of those comments have in common? They all start with I as humans, and especially as a mom or dad. We could make everything about us when it comes to our children. We by our very nature see everything from the view of me. Freud would say we are the actors in the drama of our own minds, and he didn't believe in the existence of Almighty God. And here he is describing the true nature of us as human beings with a great need for the helper. The one that Jesus sent to be our advocate to save us from a life of depravity without him. We are void of hope and left to the drama of our minds. And that leads us to living in the land of despair. I'm not a Freud fan by any means, but I had a professor in college who tried to strip me of my belief as a Christ follower. Imagine a young woman at age 18 defending her faith to a professor that threatened to fail me because of my belief. When we were required to write about the most influential experience that shaped our lives, I wrote about my decision to follow Christ. To follow Jesus and he gave me an F because he didn't see my writing as worthy of his assignment. I had a partial scholarship and it was required of me to maintain a certain GPA to keep that scholarship. I was scared, but I stood my ground with this professor who was driven to minimize my life and my experience as a Christ follower to mere nonsense based on Freud's teaching. I'll tell you what I learned in that class at the young age of 18 was how desperate we are as human beings for a savior. Often when I'm sitting across from a grieving mom, I hear those comments that I started out with today. I hear the should haves and the should nots. So what I would like to help you see today, if you are living in the land of blame, I want to help give you a different perspective. I want to help you see your story through a different set of eyes. If you believe that you are in some way responsible for your child's death, I have one question for you today. Where is the evidence that proves you are to blame? Because you see, evidence is based on facts. OK, evidence is not based on assumptions of what we believe to be true. No, evidence is based on the black and white, the facts of the circumstances. So let me ask you do you believe you are the only one that could save your child? Do you believe that you're the only one that could rescue your child? Do you believe that you're the only one that could bring healing to your child's life? Do you believe that the circumstance of their life or death rest on your shoulders? If you answered yes, then you must believe you are God because here's the truth, your child was God's child before they were yours. And as much as you love your child, you cannot be their God. Now, I hear what you might be saying right now. If my child was God's child before they were mine, then why didn't he save them from death? That's a great question. And one, I believe that our Father in heaven invites us to seek the answer to. And here's why he invites us to seek, knock and keep on knocking so that we will know him more fully. I'm not in the camp that we're not supposed to question God. There is a difference, however, between questioning God and asking questions of God. I speak from my personal experience that the more we seek the answers to our questions, the more intimately we know him. It is in that place that our God becomes more real to us than ever before. Don't take my word for it. For example, Lee Strobel ever heard of the case for Christ. Lee was an investigative journalist and an atheist. And because of his wife and her faith, he set out to find if there was any proof of this God that his wife believed in. And in his quest, he discovered the one true God through his word that is alive and active and more real than most of what we believe in this world that is presented to us as truth, but is in fact void of any truth and based on lies. Getting the answers to the questions surrounding our children's staff is the key to learning to live without their physical presence on this earth, friend. When God allows our children to come home, we have to accept by faith that he knows how to take better care of our children than we do. Tell me one thing that provides evidence that you are the reason your child died. Step back a minute and look at your circumstances through a different lens today. Are you confused because the real that runs in your head is telling you that you're guilty and you're to blame? Let's look at some facts here. The enemy is the author of confusion. First Corinthians 1433 in the Amplified Version says, "For God is not the God of confusion and disorder, but of peace and order." If you're feeling overwhelmed and allowing your thoughts to declare you guilty, this is for you. What is a condemning thought? Condemning thoughts pronounce you guilty without evidence, and it's not from God. There's a difference between negative thoughts and condemning thoughts. We've talked about this before on the podcast. We are born with a negativity bias. It is in our human nature to have negative thoughts. That's how God wired our brain to protect us, ever heard of fight or fight. Condemning thoughts present themselves as the judge and jury on the spot. They bring shame. Shame is not how God works, friend. God brings conviction to our lives, and that conviction brings repentance, and the purpose of that is to bring us closer to him so that he can restore us to himself. Do you believe that you're an evil person that set out to harm your child? If your answer to that question is no, then there is no guilt or shame in being a loving mother or father that would have given your life for your child if given the opportunity. Today, the Holy Spirit is going to release you from the lie of the blame that you have taken on as truth because his word says for now there is no condemnation, no guilty verdict, no punishment for those that are in Christ Jesus who believe in him as his personal savior. If he is not declaring you guilty, then who is helping you change your mindset from guilty to free is why God has put me in front of you today, because how you view life and death will determine whether or not you reach a place of peace. Where you can rest, and I mean really rest, not a fake sense of rest that's temporary or in the moment. I mean real rest that comes as a gift from your heavenly father, the kind of rest that surpasses human understanding. Don't worry or fret. Instead of worrying, pray, let petitions and praises shape your worries and prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know, it will bring a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good. It will settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. Philippians 4, 6 through 7, the message. When you listen to the podcast, you might feel a false assumption that I have it all together. Friend, that couldn't be further from the truth. Through the death of my son Andrew, God has taught me to see life through a different lens. He's taught me a dependence upon him that I believe that I would have never known otherwise. Recently during a one-on-one session with a client, she brought up this sentiment. It brings a sense of guilt for us to be thankful for what God has done in our life after the death of our children. It doesn't feel good to acknowledge the good that has come from our child's death. It feels like betrayal that somehow we are thankful for their death, but this couldn't be further from the truth. The death of our child has molded us into being more like Christ. This is what we're thankful for, not their death. A way to acknowledge this fact for me is to say, I'm thankful that I know my God the way I do. I'm thankful that he's taught me great and searchable things I did not know during my 33-3. I'm thankful that I'm stronger than I thought it was. I'm thankful that the love I have for those that are still in my life is stronger and deeper and life together is sweeter because of it. But it came at a price friend and that price is the death of my precious son for which I will always long for his physical presence this side of heaven. But I lived by faith with the assurance and hope for what is not yet seen to come to pass. Hebrews 11-1. Jesus said, "Blessed are those that believe and have not seen." Friend, even the angels marvel at us as humans because of our faith. First Peter 1, 10 through 12. Angels don't need faith because faith is believing in something that you can't see. Angels have seen God and how he works because they're in his presence every day. That's why one day you and I will hear well done, my good and faithful servant, because you were faithful in a few things. I will set you over much, enter into the joy of my master. Matthew 25-23. Friend, I have the same fears and worries that you do. But just like I say, God allowed him to see the throne of heaven. He just grabbed what he saw and he said the angels were calling out to each other. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heaven's armies. The whole earth is filled with his glory and he said their voices shook the temple. Oh friend, if we could just imagine what is on the other side of the veil, according to the word of God and believe it, our lives would be changed forever because the truth is, our love for this world has grown cold because our hearts are heavenward. Isaiah was scared. Are you scared? Sometimes I get scared too. Isaiah acknowledged his unworthiness to be there and to see what he was seeing. He told God, I'm doomed. I'm a sinful man and I have filthy lips and I live among the people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of heaven's armies. Friend, that is who is fighting for you and me right now. The Lord of heaven's armies, the King. An angel came and touched Isaiah's lips with a piece of coal and he said, now your guilt is removed and your sins is forgiven. God removed the obstacle that Isaiah believed was standing between him and God and he'll do the same for you. And then the Lord said, whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And he said, here I am Lord, send me. You see, I could get easily overwhelmed because what God is doing in your life through this podcast and through our one-on-one time together and soon to be a 12-week experience where we're going to focus on your grief that will help you discover what that obstacle is that's standing between you and God. But this is what God showed me. It's not about me. Isn't that what we learned today? It's not about us. This is his work, his plan, his purpose. When God sends his word out, it will accomplish the purpose for which he intended it. Isaiah 5511, my yes means that I've joined him in his work. It's not about me. It's about you, friend. It's about helping you find your way in the darkness of grief. And if he can use me in my story to do that, then his word will accomplish what he intended it for. And it will prosper everywhere he sends it so that we, you and I can live and joy and peace. Sound impossible? Yeah, I know. But that's where our faith comes in. Believing and hoping for what we have not yet seen. God does his best work when we feel it's impossible. I hope to see you, August 5th. I can't wait to see what God will do with your yes. And that's all I have for you today. So until next time, take care. To 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]
