April 29, 2025 • 16 mins
In this heartfelt episode, James shares his personal reflections on grief following the recent death of his father and his upcoming transition after 33 years in ministry at one church. Speaking both as a longtime pastor and as someone currently experiencing deep loss, James offers compassionate wisdom about the unpredictable nature of grief, encouraging listeners to allow themselves to feel their emotions without judgment. He discusses the importance of breathing through grief, seeking support when needed, expressing feelings through creative outlets, and creating personal rituals of remembrance. Through it all, James reminds us that grief, though painful, is rooted in love, and that even amid sorrow, we remain infinitely precious and unconditionally loved.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro (00:00):
Welcome to the infinitely precious podcast produced by
(00:03):
infinitely precious LLC. Yourhost is James Henry. Remember,
you are infinitely precious andunconditionally loved for the
gift you already are.
James (00:12):
Hello, beloved. It's me, James, and I am here again to
share some thoughts with you.Most of the time, in fact,
almost all the time, all thethoughts I share with you are my
own. They arise from what'sgoing on in my life or my
morning sit or whatever it mayhappen to be. Today, I want to
(00:34):
take a moment to talk to youabout the journey of grief
because that is a prevalenttopic in my life at this moment.
Now, most of you know who listento me that I have been a pastor
for or in some form of ministryvocation for roughly thirty nine
(01:03):
years of my life, so for a longtime. So I've walked with a lot
of families through grief AndI've walked through my own
grief. I've had two very closefriends of mine die
unexpectedly. One was quiteyoung from my perspective, about
50. And another, you know, wassomeone I talked to on a regular
(01:28):
basis, and so it was strange tonot be talking anymore.
So, but some of you who listenor watch also will know that
just this last week, than sixdays ago, my father died. And it
(01:52):
was kind of unexpected. I mean,was 96 years old. But earlier in
his hospitalization it had beenkind of expected. And then he
kept getting better as hisintense will is made it possible
to do.
He left the hospital, went to arehab center and was making good
(02:15):
progress. He took a turn thispast Wednesday and died at
11:20PM. I was holding his hand,my sister was stroking his hair
and my brother had just rightbeen there holding his right
(02:40):
arm. And so he slipped from thisworld in what could be seen as a
very peaceful, comfortable way.Leading up to that time as his
medical power of attorney, I hadto make the decision when the
doctors called for him to gofrom care, the kind of care they
(03:03):
were giving, to a comfort care.
And so at around six thatevening, I was still on the road
on my way there, I had giventhem permission or made the
decision because it was dad'swish to die naturally. So, I had
made that decision. And so, it'seasier to say you'll follow
(03:29):
someone's wishes than it is tofollow them, but perhaps that's
for another podcast. So, sincethat time, I have been
experiencing moments of intensegrief. You know, add to that
that I'm in the process ofleaving, a place that I have
(03:50):
worked for thirty three yearsand making a transition to a new
place, where there will be newwork and new people that I'm
looking forward to, and yetthirty three years in a place is
a long time.
So there are relationships andpieces of that that I am
grieving. So I wanted to talktoday a little bit about what to
(04:13):
do with grief. How do you getthrough to the other side? I
help people do this all thetime, but I thought it might be
helpful if I shared somethoughts as a person who was
actually going through grief atthis very moment. In this
(04:37):
moment, the intensity, the wavesof grief are not coming over me.
But I want to say a couple ofthings about grief. First of
all, it's unpredictable. The wayyou experience grief, there
isn't a right or a wrong way foryou to experience grief.
(04:58):
Everyone is different. Everyrelationship is different.
I know for instance that in thedeath of my father, my mother
who was married to him for overseventy years coming up on
seventy one years willexperience it vastly different
than his son. My relationshipwith dad was completely
(05:19):
different than my littlebrothers or my little sisters
and they're both adults justlike me, they're not little but
I always thought of them as mylittle brother and sister. Each
one of them had their own uniquerelationship with dad and so for
them their grief is going tolook different. My wife loved my
father, my children loved myfather, and so each of them
(05:44):
experience grief differently andhave a different relationship,
and that's the way grief works.So if someone is trying to sell
you a package about the sixsteps of grief or the five and
exactly what you're going to gothrough and how you do it, you
need to set that aside.
(06:06):
If you like a neat orderlypackage, grief does not come in
It doesn't. Grief will come overyou in moments when you least
expect it, in memories you don'tknow will arise. As you're
talking to someone or you'rethinking you would like to call
the person that you're missing,when those pieces come over you,
(06:33):
it will feel very real. Now,particular depending upon where
you find yourself at the timethat the wave comes over you,
your propensity might be to tryto suppress those waves of grief
coming over you. If it is at allpossible, don't do that.
(06:57):
Breathe through it because griefis real and it has physical
responses, it has mental andemotional responses and
spiritual responses that happenwithin you. And grief is based
on the fact it's based on lovethat endures and is struggling
(07:19):
to make sense of the loss of thepresence of someone in your
life, at least the presence asyou had it before. So my
suggestion would be not tosimply try to suppress the grief
you're feeling. Breathe throughit and know that it will come
(07:42):
when it comes And, you know, inthis moment as you're breathing,
you might be able to see, youknow, it lessens. There will be
a time when your grief is lessacute, less intense than it is
right now.
But right now is not necessarilythat time. So allow yourself to
(08:09):
feel the feels you feel. Youwould think that would be a
natural thing that we learn todo and yet we live in a society,
particularly for males, but forall people that say there's a
time and a place to havefeelings. And the truth is you
have feelings, they aren't you,but you have feelings when you
(08:31):
have feelings. That's how ithappens.
So if you think there's amagical formula to not have
feelings when it's inconvenient,there isn't one. Somebody might
tell you and, you know, you canpinch yourself or, you know,
poke hard or think about someinnocuous thing and try to
(08:53):
forget about what you'refeeling. But what I encourage
you to do, unless, you know,you're simply you're flying a
plane, you're the only personwho can fly it and you're trying
to land or whatever, and if youallow yourself to experience a
grief, it could end you, then Isuppose perhaps trying to
suppress your grief could begood. But in most situations,
(09:18):
letting grief happen, letting itflow as it arises is okay. I
felt mine arise just talkingabout this several times.
Now whether you could see it ornot in me, it doesn't matter.
What I know is I felt it comingup and I was breathing through
(09:39):
it. I didn't try to suppress itand there are moments when the
tears flow down my face andthere are moments when the grief
just feels like a tightening ofmy gut. It feels like lots of
different things. You'll feel itin your body and all over.
So what can you do about it?Well, when you feel the waves of
(10:00):
grief, you can breathe. You canbreathe in it and know that this
is part of the journey thatyou're going to go through. You
can recognize that it's okay togrieve. It means that the person
that you're grieving, or if youhappen to be grieving the loss
(10:23):
of work or some meaning piece inyour life, it's different, but
grief is grief.
Give yourself permission to feelthe feels that you feel. Even as
you feel those feelings, knowthat perhaps there are people in
your life that you trust andlove that you can talk to about
(10:45):
it. You don't have to be alonein this and if there aren't
people that you necessarily knowor trust, there are grief
groups. There are groups ofpeople who are struggling with
grief themselves. You couldreach out to someone who is a
spiritual advisor of yours, apastor or someone else, someone
(11:08):
who could sit with you withoutjudgment because being judged
for grief is not helpful.
It's not helpful at all. So ifyou know someone who's going
through grief, judging them isnot helpful at all, so let it
go. Let it go. The best you cando for them is just tell them
(11:29):
how sorry you are for theirloss. Don't try to time your
grief.
It takes as long as it takes toget through. Now, if your months
and months and months and yearsinto grief and you are still
feeling it as intensely as youfelt it in the beginning, there
(11:51):
can be grief that becomesunhealthy if you don't deal with
it. So seek someone out. Seeksomeone out to help you work on
that grief in the midst of yourstruggles. So give yourself
permission to live.
Sometimes the fact that yousurvived whatever happened makes
(12:12):
you feel survivor's guilt. Youknow, you might feel a tad bit
of guilt because you simply madethe decisions that the person
asked you to make in theirjourney toward death. And as you
feel that, give yourselfpermission to live. Be gentle
with your expectations of howquickly or how you're going to
(12:35):
respond. Don't be afraid to askfor what you need.
You find that you may need it.Find some expression of your
grief. Do things like perhapswrite in your journal. Perhaps
you'll, if not write in yourjournal, perhaps you're a
(12:57):
painter or a poet. Perhapsyou're not, you don't even have
to be like a professional atthat.
If you want to paint or writepoetry for you or draw, do it.
Do it as an expression of what'sgoing on inside of you. Whatever
your art, let that art out. Takecare of your body. It's helpful
(13:20):
if you're a walker like I am tokeep walking, eat healthily,
pause as you need to, keepmoving, not so much so to avoid
the pain, but to work throughthe pain.
That's healthy. And somethingelse you may do is something
(13:42):
that I often find myself doingin life which is develop a
ritual, a way of remembering. SoI, you know, today for instance,
I lit this blue candle. It's notreally blue, the candle is
white, but it's in a bluecontainer and it's just a
reminder of daddy and I talkedto him. I talk to him.
(14:06):
I don't know whether he can hearme or not, I suspect that he
can. I know I carry him with meso I talk to him and, if I'm
frustrated or angry or I'mmissing him, I tell him. I tell
him. I let him know how much hemeant to me. I'm very fortunate
(14:28):
that before he died I had aboutfour or five weeks of regular
visits with him where we couldtalk through things and I don't
have any unfinished businesswith daddy, but I can still talk
to him, can still talk to himabout the things that I would
have talked to him if he werealive.
The difference is I might justnot get the response that I
(14:51):
would have gotten if he werestill physically here. So I
encourage you, find a way tojourney through your grief.
Don't try to shortcut it, don'ttry to jump to the other side,
take time to be present withyourself in your grief. Those
(15:12):
are my thoughts about it. As aperson who is going through it
right now in a variety of ways,I encourage you to do just that.
Know that you are infinitelyprecious and unconditionally
loved for the gift that you areeven if you're not feeling that
way right now in the midst ofyour grief and know that you
will likely carry the grief foras long as you live. It simply
(15:36):
won't be as an intense or acuteor as regular perhaps, though it
may be as it is right now. So Iwish you the best on this
journey of grief that you may begoing through. I invite your
prayers for me if you so desireand for all those in this world
who are grieving. Until the nexttime I join you, wish you the
(16:00):
very best.
Welcome to the infinitely precious podcast produced by
(00:03):
infinitely precious LLC. Yourhost is James Henry. Remember,
you are infinitely precious andunconditionally loved for the
gift you already are.
James (00:12):
Hello, beloved. It's me, James, and I am here again to
share some thoughts with you.Most of the time, in fact,
almost all the time, all thethoughts I share with you are my
own. They arise from what'sgoing on in my life or my
morning sit or whatever it mayhappen to be. Today, I want to
(00:34):
take a moment to talk to youabout the journey of grief
because that is a prevalenttopic in my life at this moment.
Now, most of you know who listento me that I have been a pastor
for or in some form of ministryvocation for roughly thirty nine
(01:03):
years of my life, so for a longtime. So I've walked with a lot
of families through grief AndI've walked through my own
grief. I've had two very closefriends of mine die
unexpectedly. One was quiteyoung from my perspective, about
50. And another, you know, wassomeone I talked to on a regular
(01:28):
basis, and so it was strange tonot be talking anymore.
So, but some of you who listenor watch also will know that
just this last week, than sixdays ago, my father died. And it
(01:52):
was kind of unexpected. I mean,was 96 years old. But earlier in
his hospitalization it had beenkind of expected. And then he
kept getting better as hisintense will is made it possible
to do.
He left the hospital, went to arehab center and was making good
(02:15):
progress. He took a turn thispast Wednesday and died at
11:20PM. I was holding his hand,my sister was stroking his hair
and my brother had just rightbeen there holding his right
(02:40):
arm. And so he slipped from thisworld in what could be seen as a
very peaceful, comfortable way.Leading up to that time as his
medical power of attorney, I hadto make the decision when the
doctors called for him to gofrom care, the kind of care they
(03:03):
were giving, to a comfort care.
And so at around six thatevening, I was still on the road
on my way there, I had giventhem permission or made the
decision because it was dad'swish to die naturally. So, I had
made that decision. And so, it'seasier to say you'll follow
(03:29):
someone's wishes than it is tofollow them, but perhaps that's
for another podcast. So, sincethat time, I have been
experiencing moments of intensegrief. You know, add to that
that I'm in the process ofleaving, a place that I have
(03:50):
worked for thirty three yearsand making a transition to a new
place, where there will be newwork and new people that I'm
looking forward to, and yetthirty three years in a place is
a long time.
So there are relationships andpieces of that that I am
grieving. So I wanted to talktoday a little bit about what to
(04:13):
do with grief. How do you getthrough to the other side? I
help people do this all thetime, but I thought it might be
helpful if I shared somethoughts as a person who was
actually going through grief atthis very moment. In this
(04:37):
moment, the intensity, the wavesof grief are not coming over me.
But I want to say a couple ofthings about grief. First of
all, it's unpredictable. The wayyou experience grief, there
isn't a right or a wrong way foryou to experience grief.
(04:58):
Everyone is different. Everyrelationship is different.
I know for instance that in thedeath of my father, my mother
who was married to him for overseventy years coming up on
seventy one years willexperience it vastly different
than his son. My relationshipwith dad was completely
(05:19):
different than my littlebrothers or my little sisters
and they're both adults justlike me, they're not little but
I always thought of them as mylittle brother and sister. Each
one of them had their own uniquerelationship with dad and so for
them their grief is going tolook different. My wife loved my
father, my children loved myfather, and so each of them
(05:44):
experience grief differently andhave a different relationship,
and that's the way grief works.So if someone is trying to sell
you a package about the sixsteps of grief or the five and
exactly what you're going to gothrough and how you do it, you
need to set that aside.
(06:06):
If you like a neat orderlypackage, grief does not come in
It doesn't. Grief will come overyou in moments when you least
expect it, in memories you don'tknow will arise. As you're
talking to someone or you'rethinking you would like to call
the person that you're missing,when those pieces come over you,
(06:33):
it will feel very real. Now,particular depending upon where
you find yourself at the timethat the wave comes over you,
your propensity might be to tryto suppress those waves of grief
coming over you. If it is at allpossible, don't do that.
(06:57):
Breathe through it because griefis real and it has physical
responses, it has mental andemotional responses and
spiritual responses that happenwithin you. And grief is based
on the fact it's based on lovethat endures and is struggling
(07:19):
to make sense of the loss of thepresence of someone in your
life, at least the presence asyou had it before. So my
suggestion would be not tosimply try to suppress the grief
you're feeling. Breathe throughit and know that it will come
(07:42):
when it comes And, you know, inthis moment as you're breathing,
you might be able to see, youknow, it lessens. There will be
a time when your grief is lessacute, less intense than it is
right now.
But right now is not necessarilythat time. So allow yourself to
(08:09):
feel the feels you feel. Youwould think that would be a
natural thing that we learn todo and yet we live in a society,
particularly for males, but forall people that say there's a
time and a place to havefeelings. And the truth is you
have feelings, they aren't you,but you have feelings when you
(08:31):
have feelings. That's how ithappens.
So if you think there's amagical formula to not have
feelings when it's inconvenient,there isn't one. Somebody might
tell you and, you know, you canpinch yourself or, you know,
poke hard or think about someinnocuous thing and try to
(08:53):
forget about what you'refeeling. But what I encourage
you to do, unless, you know,you're simply you're flying a
plane, you're the only personwho can fly it and you're trying
to land or whatever, and if youallow yourself to experience a
grief, it could end you, then Isuppose perhaps trying to
suppress your grief could begood. But in most situations,
(09:18):
letting grief happen, letting itflow as it arises is okay. I
felt mine arise just talkingabout this several times.
Now whether you could see it ornot in me, it doesn't matter.
What I know is I felt it comingup and I was breathing through
(09:39):
it. I didn't try to suppress itand there are moments when the
tears flow down my face andthere are moments when the grief
just feels like a tightening ofmy gut. It feels like lots of
different things. You'll feel itin your body and all over.
So what can you do about it?Well, when you feel the waves of
(10:00):
grief, you can breathe. You canbreathe in it and know that this
is part of the journey thatyou're going to go through. You
can recognize that it's okay togrieve. It means that the person
that you're grieving, or if youhappen to be grieving the loss
(10:23):
of work or some meaning piece inyour life, it's different, but
grief is grief.
Give yourself permission to feelthe feels that you feel. Even as
you feel those feelings, knowthat perhaps there are people in
your life that you trust andlove that you can talk to about
(10:45):
it. You don't have to be alonein this and if there aren't
people that you necessarily knowor trust, there are grief
groups. There are groups ofpeople who are struggling with
grief themselves. You couldreach out to someone who is a
spiritual advisor of yours, apastor or someone else, someone
(11:08):
who could sit with you withoutjudgment because being judged
for grief is not helpful.
It's not helpful at all. So ifyou know someone who's going
through grief, judging them isnot helpful at all, so let it
go. Let it go. The best you cando for them is just tell them
(11:29):
how sorry you are for theirloss. Don't try to time your
grief.
It takes as long as it takes toget through. Now, if your months
and months and months and yearsinto grief and you are still
feeling it as intensely as youfelt it in the beginning, there
(11:51):
can be grief that becomesunhealthy if you don't deal with
it. So seek someone out. Seeksomeone out to help you work on
that grief in the midst of yourstruggles. So give yourself
permission to live.
Sometimes the fact that yousurvived whatever happened makes
(12:12):
you feel survivor's guilt. Youknow, you might feel a tad bit
of guilt because you simply madethe decisions that the person
asked you to make in theirjourney toward death. And as you
feel that, give yourselfpermission to live. Be gentle
with your expectations of howquickly or how you're going to
(12:35):
respond. Don't be afraid to askfor what you need.
You find that you may need it.Find some expression of your
grief. Do things like perhapswrite in your journal. Perhaps
you'll, if not write in yourjournal, perhaps you're a
(12:57):
painter or a poet. Perhapsyou're not, you don't even have
to be like a professional atthat.
If you want to paint or writepoetry for you or draw, do it.
Do it as an expression of what'sgoing on inside of you. Whatever
your art, let that art out. Takecare of your body. It's helpful
(13:20):
if you're a walker like I am tokeep walking, eat healthily,
pause as you need to, keepmoving, not so much so to avoid
the pain, but to work throughthe pain.
That's healthy. And somethingelse you may do is something
(13:42):
that I often find myself doingin life which is develop a
ritual, a way of remembering. SoI, you know, today for instance,
I lit this blue candle. It's notreally blue, the candle is
white, but it's in a bluecontainer and it's just a
reminder of daddy and I talkedto him. I talk to him.
(14:06):
I don't know whether he can hearme or not, I suspect that he
can. I know I carry him with meso I talk to him and, if I'm
frustrated or angry or I'mmissing him, I tell him. I tell
him. I let him know how much hemeant to me. I'm very fortunate
(14:28):
that before he died I had aboutfour or five weeks of regular
visits with him where we couldtalk through things and I don't
have any unfinished businesswith daddy, but I can still talk
to him, can still talk to himabout the things that I would
have talked to him if he werealive.
The difference is I might justnot get the response that I
(14:51):
would have gotten if he werestill physically here. So I
encourage you, find a way tojourney through your grief.
Don't try to shortcut it, don'ttry to jump to the other side,
take time to be present withyourself in your grief. Those
(15:12):
are my thoughts about it. As aperson who is going through it
right now in a variety of ways,I encourage you to do just that.
Know that you are infinitelyprecious and unconditionally
loved for the gift that you areeven if you're not feeling that
way right now in the midst ofyour grief and know that you
will likely carry the grief foras long as you live. It simply
(15:36):
won't be as an intense or acuteor as regular perhaps, though it
may be as it is right now. So Iwish you the best on this
journey of grief that you may begoing through. I invite your
prayers for me if you so desireand for all those in this world
who are grieving. Until the nexttime I join you, wish you the
(16:00):
very best.
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