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Natural Consequences: Grief is Love
Early in my grieving after Marrett’s death, my therapist suggested that the love I held for him needed somewhere to go, now that it couldn’t be shared with his physical person. Instead, I snuggled his big wiggly hunting dog, I washed his boat, I combed through his papers and books to sift out the best…
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Strung Together
“I feel like I’m mourning my whole life” said a fellow griever at a retreat I led this month. And I knew exactly what she meant. There’s a way in which every grief connects to every other, tying itself with an invisible string that webs it’s way across our past and tugs our hearts out…
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Love is Never Wasted
I’m single again, and processing all the feelings that come along with a break-up. I had high but cautious hopes and they have been disappointed. Being in my first serious post-widowhood relationship revealed so many things, including the places where I still need to heal. But more than anything, in the disappointment and hurt, I…
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What My Fear Told Me When I Invited It to Speak
This is the result of some Internal Family Systems therapy I’ve been engaging as I try to understand my anxiety and fear of relationship abandonment in the wake of both divorce and widowhood. I am a wall, it said, standing around you to keep you strong I am a whirlwind blowing you away from pain…
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Speaking Ill of the Saints
As we prepare to celebrate All Saints’ Sunday this weekend, I wonder if you are feeling the complicated pull I am about the saints who surround you, both living and deceased. I am so grateful for those who have walked in faith with me, from my earliest days until now, for the ways they have…
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Last First Day
Me newly 45, with her father nearing 50, we laughed about how we’d be the same age as some kindergartener’s grandparents. I teased him about how he’d surely be crying more than me (he usually did) and he told the story for the millionth time about bawling in front of his eldest daughter’s kindergarten locker,…
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On a Silver Platter
Healthy. Honest. Faithful. Safe. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. Those are the big words from the Romantic Partner Vision Board I wrote about a couple months ago. Alongside those are many more, a detailed description of the partner I know I need for the life I have now and for the life I hope will be mine…
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Pushing Grief Away is Pushing God Away
If God is love, and grief is really just love that now has no living object, then it seems obvious that God is found in grief. Yet every time I make this connection, first for myself in the wake of Marrett’s death and now regularly for others in writing, preaching and speaking, people are stunned.…
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God’s will and the death of our dreams
The final post from my original Grief Lectionary writings, based on 1 Samuel 17. What happens when what we want turns out to not be what God wants? What does it feel like when our dreams of grandeur and prestige turn out to be unlike any of God’s dreams, either for us or for Themselves?…
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The Rage-Sads and Shattering of God
This is one of my favorite chapters in the whole bible, and reading it now through my grief further enriches its meaning. This is a story that makes me not only love, but like God, for They seem so relatable. Like, who hasn’t wanted to destroy the people who’ve betrayed them? I know I have,…
a blog and resources about love, loss and faith.
Mother and step-mother, pastor and writer, Collette Broady Grund offers her perspective on grief and faith. Scroll down for blog posts and sermons, or click the buttons below to check out her Grief Lectionary Study or contact her about speaking engagements, workshops and small group leadership.
Collette Broady Grund 