August 8, 2025 • 48 mins
When Clarissa Moll’s husband died suddenly, she was thrust into a new reality one shaped by deep grief, single parenting, and the quiet work of guiding her four children through unimaginable loss. In this episode, Clarissa shares hard-won wisdom about how children grieve, how adults can walk alongside them with care and presence, and how grief doesn’t need to be fixed it needs to be witnessed. We talk about building a grief-literate community, the sacred role of lament, and how the church can hold space for sorrow and hope at the same time. Clarissa offers powerful insight into what it means to be beloved in the midst of pain and how the slow work of healing happens in community, in story, and in the soil of everyday life. This is an honest, hope-filled conversation for anyone navigating loss or walking with someone who is.
Clarissa Moll is an award-winning writer and podcaster who helps bereaved people find flourishing after loss. Clarissa’s writing appears in Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, RELEVANT, Modern Loss, Grief Digest and more. She co-hosted Christianity Today’s “Surprised by Grief” podcast and produces Christianity Today's flagship news podcast, "The Bulletin." Clarissa’s debut book, Beyond the Darkness: A Gentle Guide for Living with Grief and Thriving After Loss, was a best-selling new release in 2022. She is the author of the Beyond the Darkness Devotional, Hurt Help Hope: A Real Conversation about Teen Grief and Life after Loss, and Hope Comes to Stay. Clarissa is a remarried widow and lives with her large blended family in the Boston area.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Clarissa Moll (00:00):
And gosh, does the church root us, not only in
(00:03):
the truth of our brokenness, butin the hope of Jesus, and it
holds for us those tensions thatwe see in the psalms of lament
in such a beautiful way that Ithink, wow, it takes a village
to raise a grieving person fromdeath to life again. You Joshua,
Joshua Johnson (00:32):
hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus, I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, grief
changes the shape of everything,and when children are involved,
it becomes even more tender,more complex and more vital to
hold with care after the suddendeath of her husband, Clarissa
(00:54):
mall found herself not onlygrieving the loss of a partner,
but becoming the guide her fourchildren needed through their
own sorrow. In thisconversation, Clarissa shares
what it means to parent throughloss with presence,
vulnerability and honesty. Weexplore how children process
grief over time, how they needlanguage, silence, play and
story to make sense of theirpain and how adults can become
(01:16):
safe places rather than fixers.
Clarissa offers practical wisdomand hard won insight for anyone
walking alongside a grievingchild or carrying their own
unspoken ache. We also talkabout what the church can do to
become a place of comfortinstead of pressure, how
community helps us rehearse thetruths we can't always speak
ourselves, and how hope lookslike staying when it would be
(01:39):
easier to leave. So join us fora conversation about grief,
resilience, belovedness and thelong patient work of walking
each other toward healing. Hereis my conversation with
Clarissa. Mall. Clarissa,welcome to shifting culture.
Thank you so much for joiningme. Excited to have you. Thanks
for having me. You have helped alot of people navigate grief and
(02:02):
loss and pain. You've beenfamiliar with grief, so tell me
your story about how you becamefamiliar with grief, and then
why you've decided not just togo through it yourself, but to
help others navigate grief aswell. Well,
Clarissa Moll (02:21):
I think, like most listeners, I would have
preferred to never have comeinto contact with loss, but it's
inevitable in one way oranother. During your lifetime,
the older you get, the more youlose loved ones, the more you
suffer disappointments and andrealize, in big ways, the
suffering and brokenness of theworld in 2019 my husband Rob
(02:42):
died in an accident on ourfamily vacation, leaving me a
widow with four kids to raise onmy own. And Rob had been a
journalist, he had actually beena hospice volunteer and had
worked the night shift at afuneral home. So even though his
death was a surprise to me andreally shattered, not only the
(03:04):
way that we lived as a family,but the way I perceived the
world to work in many ways, wehad already been having these
conversations for almost adecade in our marriage, as he
would sit with folks who weredying on the weekends, as he
would interact with grievingfamilies on the Night shift
there at the funeral home,answering questions, offering
basic support as they wereprocessing their goodbyes. And
(03:27):
so these conversations, eventhough I didn't want to have
them, we had little kids runningaround our ankles at that point,
they created a really strongfoundation for this most
difficult experience these lastsix years of now rebuilding and
living our lives without him. Idon't think that you can ever
really prepare for grief or thesorrow that is going to
(03:49):
blindside you at one point oranother in your life, but you
can have conversations about themechanics, the logistics, the
desires around endings, becauseeven though we want to avoid
those kind of conversations.
Becoming equipped has made allthe difference for me and for my
kids.
Joshua Johnson (04:07):
Being equipped is really important. But as
you're looking at navigatingthose questions early before his
death, you're looking at deaththat is expected, right? That
you could navigate a loss wherethis is a slow dying process.
And you can, you know, prayover. You could, you know, you
could recite some someliturgies, and you could talk
(04:30):
about the past and what you'relooking forward to in the
future. And you can say yourgoodbyes, and you can say, I
love you. What's the differencethen in sudden loss. And how's,
how does that hurt in wayswhere, maybe even, I mean,
navigating long term losses isis really difficult, and, you
(04:52):
know, we've done that and butwhat is sudden loss? Like, yeah,
Clarissa Moll (04:57):
that's a good question. I think it's, it's
something that. Folks say, Ican't even imagine what it's
like to stand and have policechaplains tell you in a single
sentence that your husband hasdied, that you're never going to
see his body, that this is overand it's it is really like the
curtain dropping suddenly in themiddle of a show that you
(05:18):
thought would last for at leastanother hour, if not you know
another 20 to 30 years and andsudden loss has that very
disorienting kind of effect onyour life. Shock is really
normal to come after learningsomething as disorienting as a
sudden loss can be, and it comeswith it all of these physical
(05:41):
parts of the grief experiencethat we often don't talk a whole
lot about, sleepless nights,changes in appetite, libido,
relational changes, all of thesekinds of things. Brain fog, you
know, the sense of like, I'd bedriving my kids to school and be
at a stoplight and think I don'tknow where to go. Where am I?
(06:01):
Where am I going? You know, justthe sense of living outside of
your own body and your own life,that's how disorienting sudden
loss can be. And because ofthat, our culture, you know,
doesn't sort of know what to do.
I'm a real unicorn, a young momwho's raised four kids on my
own. Woke up one morning a wifeand went to sleep the next a
widow and and so we don't knowhow to deal with those kinds of
(06:24):
losses because they are sounexpected, and we don't have a
culture or a language aroundtalking about or preparing for
those things when
Joshua Johnson (06:35):
you're navigating that. I mean, I, my
wife and I were in the MiddleEast for for many years. We
worked with war refugees, and sowe were navigating loss all over
the place, loss of homes, oflives, and, you know, children
trying to cope with with theloss, and moving really into a
new country and having a suddenchange. It's not an easy thing.
(06:59):
And there's, you know, a lot ofthings that we could do with
trauma. How did you navigate aplace of dealing with your grief
and then helping walk your kidsthrough grief and being there
for them and with them? Is thateven possible? Do you need other
people? What does that looklike?
Clarissa Moll (07:18):
Well, I think it's it's both, and yes, it's
possible. And yes, you can't doit by yourself, navigating loss
in a shared experience like wehad. It's kind of like being a
short order cook, you know, I'mmaking a different meal for
everybody at every point in theday, because one person's grief
is not serving up the same kindof symptoms and experience as
(07:39):
somebody else's kind of grief.
And if I try to feed everybodythe same meal, somebody's gonna
go hungry and somebody's gonnaget a belly ache because they
ate the wrong thing. And soreally, so much of dealing with
shared loss is about becomingstudents of one another,
becoming listeners in a waythat, for me as a parent, was
kind of a culture shift. I mean,I'm supposed to have all the
(07:59):
answers, right? As the mom I'msupposed to be the leader, my
kids looked to me as the newleader. Folks in my community
began to look to me as the newleader. And yet, within our four
walls, we were all stumbling.
And so one of the earlyconversations we had together as
a family, my youngest had justturned seven, my oldest was on
(08:20):
the verge of turning 14, and Iremember sitting down and being
like guys, we're a team now, andI may be the team captain, but
I'm also playing on the fieldwith you, and so we're going to
have to really improve ourcommunication. Be listening to
one another, be watching foranother, one another. We had a
rule in our house, no one criesalone unless they want to, which
(08:41):
implies that you're not going todo this by yourself unless
you're communicating that that'swhat your need is right now. And
so that really shifts the waysthat you interact with loss,
because even in as much as griefis universal, you know, I can't
understand your experience, youcan't step into mine, but we do
share this burden of brokenness.
It's also very unique, and itcan cause a lot of conflict when
(09:03):
families or communities who areexperiencing a shared loss
aren't able to really create andprovide the kind of space that's
required for that uniqueness toexist.
Joshua Johnson (09:16):
Well, especially you're navigating a culture in
America where you surprised ofindependence, of like I could do
this on my own, and you'retalking about about kids
speaking up for what they'refeeling and when you're
navigating those emotions. Imean, I don't know, I'm I don't
(09:37):
know if I've ever gotten intouch with my full emotions in
my body, and I'm still trying tofigure out, what am I actually
feeling? How do you help kidsnavigate their own emotions so
that they could speak up forwhat they need in the moment? I
Clarissa Moll (09:52):
think a lot of it is just getting quiet. You know,
for kids, so much of their livesare highly structured. They get
a lot of. Input coming in allday long, from school to sports
and after school activities,they're doing video games.
They're on screens. They've gotso much coming in, and it can be
hard to know yourself in themidst of all of that noise and
(10:13):
activity. And we, you know,nature abhors a vacuum. We hate
silence. My kids hate riding inthe car in silence, but there
are points where silence is thevery best gift that you can
offer to a child, to allow themto get in touch with their
emotions, not sitting in a roomall by themselves and like go
(10:33):
off and think for a littlewhile, Johnny, but giving them
age appropriate activities thatprovide a little brain space.
Because I think when we'reasking kids to access their
emotions, they know theiremotions intuitively, but
beginning to express themverbally requires a different
kind of skill building, and it'ssomething that the adults in
(10:55):
their lives have to be ready tonot even coach them, but perhaps
facilitate for them, becausethis is something that kids can
learn to do really well. I'vewatched my kids do it. I've
watched other kids do it, butit's not a given. They've got to
have a village of support tohelp them do it.
Joshua Johnson (11:13):
You just said that word facilitate. So then
what is facilitation look like?
How could we be betterfacilitators?
Clarissa Moll (11:21):
That's that's a really good question, and I
appreciate you asking, because Ithink that as adults, we assume
we're coming into this game witha whole lot of skills we got to
share and and really, what ourkids need when they're grieving,
honestly, what everybody needswhen they're grieving is not a
fixer. I mean, it doesn't takeyou long in experiencing a
(11:42):
divorce, a family estrangement,a job loss, some great
disappointment to realize thereare things you come up against
in life that cannot be fixed byhuman hands, that through effort
and intuition, through, youknow, sticking, you know,
getting your hands dirty, youjust can't do it. But what
everybody needs is somebody whowill say three things to them, I
(12:04):
love you, I'm sorry, and I'llstick around as long as it
takes. And I think, for a childwho's trying to figure out how
to grapple with big feelingsaround a loss, for the adults
who are looking to support them,those are the three best things
you could ever say, Hey Johnny,I love you. I'm super sorry that
your life has interacted with somuch brokenness. This is not as
(12:26):
it should be, and I'm going tostick around with you as long as
it takes. Maybe all I'm going tohave to say is I love you and
I'm sorry over and over again.
But those words are adequate,because they acknowledge the
things that can't be fixedeasily.
Joshua Johnson (12:40):
You know, I remember, it was a year and a
half ago, my, my mother in law,passed away. She lived with us.
So my son, who's just turnedeight, he knew life with her.
She lived with us. New life withher, only with her until she
passed away, and she she died.
And I remember in this room thatthat we renovated now is my
podcast studio office. There wasa broken chair in this corner,
(13:03):
and when we were starting torenovate, it was about it was
almost a year after she passedaway, and he just sat with that
chair, and for the first time,he broke down and he wept. He
didn't cry ever before that. Andthat was a year later where a an
(13:23):
object reminds, you know, my sonof his grandma, that she played
with him this, you know, thisairplane game with with that
chair, and it said, I'm nevergoing to be able to play that
again. And and he just wept. Howdo we navigate long term grief
with kids when we know that younever know what's going to come
(13:48):
up, and when the grief isoverwhelming and overflows, and
it's not just a one time thing,it happens over and over again
in our lives,
Clarissa Moll (14:02):
that's right? And Joshua, your your example is so
perfect, because that child wasgrieving from the day that the
news was announced, it just tooka different form, right? And so
for adults, it is thatattentiveness to Okay. I know
this is happening. It'ssimmering underground, if there
(14:22):
are rumbles of it, but it's notshowing up in particular ways.
And children grieve differentlythan adults do. They do that
sort of popcorn grieving, whereeverything seems fine, and then
they they get a bad grade on atest, and then it suddenly
becomes about grandma dying, andyou think, Whoa, where did how
did your brain connect those twothings? Well, they're intimately
connected, because even if achild isn't expressing their
(14:45):
grief in a ways that are adult,like they're still processing
it. And we know through researchthat children do what's called
regrieving, that they interactwith their loss again at every
new developmental milestone,with the growing understanding
that comes with age andmaturity. Right? So the little
child who loses a loved one atage seven or eight understands
it with a seven or eight yearold mind, but when he or she
(15:08):
gets to prom, to a firstboyfriend or girlfriend, to
graduation, to receiving adegree, whatever you know it
any, any number of myriadmilestones that loss comes back
and can hit in a brand new way,almost sometimes more raw and
tender than that incitingincident. And why is that? It's
(15:29):
not because the child hasn'tbeen processing all the time.
They've been metabolizing theirloss and integrating it into
their lives as they grow andchange. They just haven't had
the same kind of understandingof the weight of that loss until
that moment. And so thatpicture, you know, of I just
imagine this little boy in achair, and I think to myself,
yeah, that's how grief is. Andthen they get up and go play,
(15:52):
and that moment in the chairmatters. And the going off and
playing matters. And to us asadults, we're sort of looking
for a narrative that makessense, but that's not how
childhood grief works at all.
Joshua Johnson (16:04):
Then what changed as you were navigating
your grief? What did you learnin the discovery process and
then the research process thatnow helps you? You have more
tools. What are some of thetools that you picked up?
Clarissa Moll (16:18):
I think the number one thing as it relates
to children and teenagers isthat we got to start having
these conversations early. Wecan't wait until the moment. We
can't wait until after the fact.
You know, my I've got two headedto college this year, and so
we've been through the collegeapplication process and thinking
through writing that collegeessay, and my goodness, I'm sure
(16:38):
glad I didn't teach them theirABCs in the last 18 months,
because it would have made thosecollege application essays a
whole lot harder, right? Weteach our kids vocabulary. We
teach them ABCs long beforethey're ever going to need to
write that college essay. Why?
Because we want to equip them.
We don't want them to bestressed. We want them to be
able to express themselvesfully, and we want to do the
(17:01):
same thing with our kids aroundtough topics, sexuality and
grief and loss and so really,you know, when I think about my
research, about my own livedexperience, about the investment
of my husband's work and legacyin our lives, it's start the
conversation early. Talk aboutthe leaves in the fall dying and
waiting through winter forsomething to rise again in the
(17:23):
spring, talk about the pet thatdies. Talk about a news headline
in age appropriate language.
Talk about a school shootingthat's happened in a community
next to yours, and kind of parsethat out. Use any opportunity to
talk about the fragility of lifewith your kid in age appropriate
language, because you're givingthem the building blocks for a
(17:45):
vocabulary that's going tobenefit them for the rest of
their lives.
Joshua Johnson (17:49):
Because your kids were growing up you you
were out in nature a lot. Youknow, I was in the Pacific
Northwest there. I grew upthere. As you're looking at
nature, one of the things thatyou do see is, is this process
of death and new life andrebirth, and even under the
ground, things are are growing.
How do we look at what ishappening in the natural world
(18:13):
to help us navigate transitionsand changes of seasons and new
life, and hold on to some hope,knowing that even in the
darkness of winter, whereeverything seems like there's no
life, there's only death, thereis a spring coming, there is
something that is going to shootup from the ground, where we see
some new sprigs of life.
Clarissa Moll (18:37):
Yeah, I'm an avid gardener. I've become that in
the last few years especially,and there are a lot of things
I've learned from my time in thesoil. The first one is that you
never know what's going tothrive and what's going to fail.
And the job of the gardener isnot that end result. The job of
the gardener is faithfulness.
And so in our experience ofteaching our kids about grief.
(19:01):
It's less about outcomes and farmore about process. It is about
helping our kids understand thatthe seeds we sow in being honest
about our grief, using reallanguage around death and loss,
talking to people, expressingourselves, all of those seeds
are going to bear fruit in someways, but you don't know which
(19:22):
ones and in what ways. So a goodgardener doesn't sow one seed in
the field. A good gardener sowsa lot of seeds, and interacting
with your grief, engaging withit, takes a lot of work. But
then there's also this beautifulseason of waiting that is
essential for a gardener tounderstand. You can put in the
(19:42):
work, but then you just gottasit and wait for the sun to come
out. You gotta wait for therain. You know you could, you
can turn on that sprinkler, butthere is a lot that is beyond
your control. And you know whenyou're experiencing loss, when
you're experiencing uncertainty,especially for children. In the
waiting period can be superhard, and as parents, we want to
hurry that along press the fastforward button. We want to save
(20:06):
them from the discomfort of thewaiting. We want to hurry them
up to a solution. We want totake away anything else hard
that could happen to them. Butthere is essential work that is
happening in the waiting, in allthose seeds of investment that
you have planted in integratingyour grief and doing the hard
work of grieving in a healthyway. You are waiting for God to
work. You're waiting for yourcommunity to have time to catch
(20:30):
their breath and come aroundyou. You're waiting for your own
heart to be ready for whateverGod is calling you to next.
Because the reality is, afterloss, you don't want to just
survive. You want to thriveagain. And thriving takes a lot
of work, but it also takesseasons of waiting and rest. And
I think kids can see that, youknow, you get a pack of radish
(20:51):
seeds from the local hardwarestore, plant them in a paper cup
and set them on your windowsill,and you got that object lesson
right there about the kind ofwork that needs to be just a
normal. Part of the warp andwoof of living with grief and
loss
Joshua Johnson (21:07):
is waiting, and waiting is not fun, especially
in the culture that we live innow. We want to rush past grief.
We want to get things done. Wewant to be productive like we're
a productive society and soproductivity, we see ourselves
as machines and not humans. Sohow do we become more grief
(21:28):
literate within our communities?
And how do we help people waitand be people that Wait. Wait
for God to act. Wait for God tocome around us. Wait for
community to be with us. Howcould we become more grief
literate as community? I
Clarissa Moll (21:45):
think Scripture gives us this beautiful picture
of that in the psalms of lament.
You know, throughout the psalmsof lament, we see someone who is
raging against God, who isasking a lot of questions,
expressing despair, anger,frustration, deep sadness and
brokenness, and in a sense,being like, hurry up, God, I'm
(22:06):
ready whenever you want to takethis away. I'm first in line,
right? But the sums of lamentgive us this beautiful picture
that says, okay, we can holdthat sense of urgency to want to
get past the hard thing in thesame hand as worship and resting
in the Lord. Well, how do yourest in the Lord in the valley
(22:27):
of the shadow when you have noidea where the path is going to
lead you, when barely the lampat your feet and the light at
your path is giving you morethan a couple inches worth of
light to go on you do the thingsthat the psalmist does in those
psalms of lament. He neverexplains, really, how he gets
from despair to a sense of restin God's character, all he does
(22:50):
is begin reciting it over andover again to his heart the
truth that he knows. And I thinkyou know, as we are in that
waiting season, as we're tryingto figure out what next is,
we're trying to jump off theconveyor belt of productivity.
It's about rehearsing toourselves the truths that we
know about God, even when it'sso dark in our lives we can
(23:12):
barely see to discern that theystill exist. And for that to
happen, you've got to havecommunity to come around you.
When my husband first died, thenumber one place that was
hardest to return to was church.
It just didn't feel like we fitanymore. A mom with four kids,
the gaping space next to mewhere my husband used to sit in
(23:34):
the pew, the happy songs when wedidn't feel happy, the noise
when we just felt like we had nowords and wanted to be silent,
the people who were well meaningbut reached out, and we didn't
know what to do with that kindof care, and you know, we
grappled with how to manage thatover time. But the one thing
(23:55):
that church gave me, that Icould find in no other place,
was the people who rehearsed thetruths of God's character to me
when I could no longer say themfor myself. I could stand in
that congregation on a Sundaymorning with no words and tears
streaming down my face, and Iwould hear people sing around me
the truths of God. I would hearthe words spoken from the front
(24:17):
washing over me, the words ofGod when I couldn't even open my
Bible. And so for me, you know,I think about this desire for
productivity, our desire to getaway from the bad things. And
gosh, does the church root us,not only in the truth of our
brokenness, but in the hope ofJesus. And it holds for us those
tensions that we see in thepsalms of lament in such a
(24:40):
beautiful way that I think, wow,it takes a village to raise a
grieving person from death tolife again.
Joshua Johnson (24:47):
I think that's really important, is to rehearse
those truths and rehearse thestory of God so that you could
know you're here and you'represent, and that we, we could
have this wash over us, and youdon't have to do anything. You
have the. Community around you.
You know, in your, yourchildren's book, he wrote, it's
called hope comes to stay. A lotof people when, when I think of
of hope in the midst of ofgrief, some people might, might
(25:10):
say, Well, hope is, is toohappy, clappy, it's too much
like, is it real? Like, is hopereal in the midst of grief. So
can you define what hope is andis hope possible in grief?
Clarissa Moll (25:29):
I think that's the number one thing that I want
for kids to understand as theybegin to grapple with the
brokenness of the world and howgrief and loss can intersect
with their lives. My number onefavorite character in Scripture
is Naomi, because she is a classa grump. She loses her husband,
she loses her sons, and she hasno problem talking about it. She
(25:52):
returns to her home and herfriends welcome her back, and
she's like, call me bitter. Idon't even have a name anymore.
And what do we see her doing?
It's just miraculous how thewriter of Ruth describes her
transformation. We don't see theinner workings of her heart
where she's hashing it out withGod. We see her just simply
putting one foot in front of theother and doing the next right
(26:14):
thing. And at the end of thebook of Ruth, she gets this new
grandbaby set in her lap, andthose same friends who greeted
her to her disdain at thebeginning now say Naomi has
another son. They recognize thegrowth in her life, and they're
able to rejoice with her. And sowhat is hope? Hope has legs.
(26:35):
Hope takes a step forward evenwhen it doesn't seem like it's
worth it, even when the light isnot there to follow. Hope is
Naomi. It's walking forward,entrusting yourself to a God who
is wiser and better than you canimagine, and linking arms with a
community who will sometimesdrag you kicking and streaming
(26:57):
toward that hope, but will pointyour feet toward it.
Nonetheless,
Joshua Johnson (27:02):
if it is one foot in front of the other, if
it is it is walking, there'salso like Naomi had had
companions with her thatwouldn't leave so hope isn't
just a feeling that it is alsoan embodied presence with
people. How can we, as the bodyof Christ, as the embodied
(27:24):
presence of Jesus, be hope inthe midst of grief for people,
Clarissa Moll (27:30):
I think the number one way is to stick
around. So many of us aretransient in our relationships.
Friends come in and out of ourlives. We move and we lose touch
with people. Are ourrelationships with folks, sort
of, they disintegrate into textrelationships instead of real,
(27:51):
embodied relationships. And soreally, for the church, it's to
do what we have always donebest, to say the God who has not
left me or forsaken me, tells methat's my job now too for you, I
am called to be the hands andfeet of Jesus, and I don't have
all the answers like he does.
I'm still living in that spaceof mystery alongside of you, but
I will do the thing that Jesushas done for me, and that is to
(28:14):
stick around I love how Isaiahsays that Jesus was a man who
was deeply acquainted withgrief, and in Hebrew, that word
deeply acquainted means friendJesus was willing to link arms
with grief and walk forward withit on our behalf. And I think
that's the very best gift thatwe can offer to our grieving
(28:35):
friends, to say, I'm going tolink arms with the saddest stuff
in your life, and I'm going tostick around and walk with you
toward resurrection.
Joshua Johnson (28:44):
What do we need to do to get rid of the
distractions so that we can bepresent with each other, that we
can maybe become human again?
Clarissa Moll (28:56):
First, use those notifications on your phone to
to a good purpose. Get thatfriend, get that friend's phone
number and mark on yourcalendar, on your phone when
their date of loss is, mark thatwith an alarm. Mark it six
months from now. Mark it threemonths from now. Mark it a year
from now, so that when yourphone pings you, you can reach
(29:19):
out and say, hey, you know what?
I know. This is a tough day foryou. Just want you to know I'm
thinking of you. That's thefirst one is, get super, super
practical. The second one is,while you're working on that,
that alarm on your phone, clearyour calendar, the presence, the
embodied presence that grievingpeople need most, takes up space
and when we are so super busyourselves, it's really hard to
(29:42):
create space for others. So makesure that every yes that you're
making is a worthwhile one,because every yes to one thing
that seems good is a no tosomething else. And we always
want to make our yeses to peopleand things that matter. Matter
in an eternal perspective, andwe want to make sure that our
nos are appropriate as well. Andso as you're thinking about your
(30:06):
calendar, create space for griefto show up and create space to
not only grieve yourself, butoffer yourself in love to
someone else.
Joshua Johnson (30:18):
In this process, it's been, you know, six years.
Where have you found hope? Wheredoes the hope come to stay for
you?
Clarissa Moll (30:26):
You know, I think it's different. On any given
day, we're recording this just afew years, few days before the
sixth anniversary of myhusband's death, we're recording
this on a Monday, and in onSaturday, it will be the sixth
year. And sometimes I think tomyself, gosh, I don't I don't
know how I woke up breathingthis morning, like, how am I
(30:47):
still here? And he's still gone,and in some days, it feels like
it's been forever since I sawhim, like I can't even remember
what it meant to hold his handor to be held by him. And so I
think, for me, hope is is amoment by moment. Remember being
remembered by God. My husbandwas memorizing First John in the
(31:11):
months before he died. And youknow, one of the words that
rises up from First John overand over again is that word
Beloved. And I think for me,hope is all about resting in my
belovedness. So maybe that is atext from a friend that reminds
me of my belovedness a beautifulsunrise on the way to drive one
of my kids to an early bandpractice before school that
(31:34):
says, hey, Clarissa, you're notforgotten. Hope shows up in so
many different ways, but chancesare it's not something that I've
been able to drum up myself, andit is fragile. It is fleeting,
and that's how I know thatthere's got to be more coming.
CS Lewis says that all thethings that we experience now
that are joyful are just aforetaste of the thing that is
(31:56):
yet to come, that bettercountry. And so I think for us,
that blessed hope is it's justan appetizer, but I'll take it
knowing that the full meal isstill ahead.
Joshua Johnson (32:06):
What a beautiful thing that the full meal is
still ahead, and that we do getforetastes of this. We don't.
It's not just hey, it's there.
There's just despair andloneliness and horrible things
here on Earth. There is someforetaste that we get. We get
some, some heaven on earth,which is fantastic. And I thank
God that he's there. And sothink of like, what are your
(32:29):
belovedness? I think that if wesee ourselves as beloved
children of God, it changes, itchanges everything. That's it.
It's that we're the beloved ofGod that changes my orientation
of striving towards, you know,trying to make God love me or or
whatever, especially in thesethese processes of loss. What
(32:53):
does belovedness do? The to knowthe truth that you are the
beloved child of God that Heloves you as his own because you
are. I think it means
Clarissa Moll (33:07):
different things to different people. For me, it
has been very much about thefather, love of God. It's kind
of a funny thing in some ways,because I didn't lose my dad, my
kids lost their dad. I lost aspouse, a partner. But what I
found over the last six yearsthat I have needed the very most
is a father, someone who wouldlet me be small and weak and and
(33:31):
so when I think of belovednessand resting in my belovedness, I
think of that verse fromZephaniah, where God is
delighting over us with His lovethat he rejoices over us with
singing this idea that we arecarried by his love into a world
that's super difficult, but he'sbigger than all of that. And I
(33:51):
think for me, in this season,resting in the father, love of
God has been the most intimateexpression and understanding of
that belovedness for me,
Joshua Johnson (34:01):
I think a lot of people, I agree with you, to let
you be small and weak is reallyimportant as a parent, of
helping kids navigate theirgrief. I think being small and
weak to me feels like, oh, man,I don't know if I'm doing it
right. How do we work that outwith kids of knowing that, hey,
(34:22):
I'm vulnerable, I'm weak, I'msmall, like, I need help. I'm
not, you know, I'm noteverything for you kids. So how
do we do that, and how do we dothat in a healthy way that
doesn't think that you'veabandoned kids as well? Like,
what? What's the how do wenavigate that? I
Clarissa Moll (34:42):
think, for children and for adults as well,
it's about learning tounderstand the sort of circles
of intimacy that exist in thelives that we live in in
relationship with one another.
There's this beautiful imagethat the illustrator of hope
comes to stay has in our bookof. Little Leela walking with
her mother as she approachesschool for the first day after
(35:03):
her dad has died, and she's gother little bear there that she's
holding on to that's sort ofsymbolic for her of this loss.
And she decides that she doesn'twant to bring the bear there,
that this is a space where shewants grief to just be quiet.
And I think it's okay to teachchildren that there are varying
levels of intimacy that weengage with in our lives with
(35:26):
one another. There are varyinglevels of vulnerability that are
appropriate in our relationshipswith one another. You know, we
live in a culture that has theseweird polars we overshare on
Tiktok and and it's a lot, it's,it's a lot of ugly, ugly cries
and dancing that you're probablygoing to regret in 10 to 15
years. And then on the otherside of that, we say, pull
(35:48):
yourself up by your bootstraps.
Come on, man shoulder on. BigBoys, don't cry. And so our kids
are, you know, in this pendulumswinging from one end to the
next. And really, it's not thatextremes are where we want to
end up. It's that we want toteach our children to discern in
(36:09):
each moment. Okay, is this aperson that I can be vulnerable
with? How weak can I be withthis person? I'm going to throw
out some exploratory questions.
I'm going to watch to see howthey respond to suffering in
other people, in a crowd or in agroup that I'm in, I'm going to
learn to really be a detectivewhen it comes to human
relationships, and then I'mgoing to, little by little, put
(36:30):
myself out there, test thewaters a little bit. And so
we're teaching our kids theserelational skills as it relates
to vulnerability, so thatthey're able to do that
practicing now within thescaffolding of their family, but
do it well when they becometeenagers and adults figuring
out, okay, who can I explorethese hard feelings with and and
(36:52):
be weak with, and explore whatit means to be my beloved, to
explore my belovedness in areally intimate and tender way.
And where do I need to say, hey,you know, I don't think this
relationship is ready for thatyet, or may never be ready for
that kind of conversation,
Joshua Johnson (37:10):
you know, and hope comes to say you're using
storytelling to help kidsnavigate their loss and grief.
What is the role then of storyand art to help actually
navigate these things with us.
Clarissa Moll (37:24):
Well, for little children, there's something we
call parallel play. And ifyou're a parent, you've seen
your kids do it, you invite themover, another family over for a
play date, and you expect thekids to play together, and they
just sort of sit next to eachother, never talking, but
playing Legos. And you think,How can this be a play date?
Didn't you interact at all? Butthe reality is that a lot of
learning happens throughparallel play for kids, that in
(37:48):
as much as we there is adidactic nature, a teaching
nature to the relationships thatthey have with one another, and
sometimes we see that go awrywith their peers, there's also a
parallel play kind of learning,and a story gives a really non
confrontational, low stressentry point for parallel play, a
child getting to watch anotherchild navigate through seasons
(38:11):
of loss. So when it comes tochildren, stories are a really
good way to introduce bigconcepts in a way that kids can
watch and not feel like they'reput on the spot. But I think the
same thing works for us too. Youknow, there are certain movies
or stories that, gosh, I don'tknow how many times I've seen
them, but they bring me to tearsevery time. And why is that?
(38:33):
Because I noticed somethingparallel in my life that is
expressed in that story. Thereare differences. I can
acknowledge those but there's acommonality, a common truth and
and that brings me along. Itfills in the gaps where the
story might be different. And sowhen I think about stories and
art, I think of them as a vitalconnection for grieving people,
(38:55):
because in as much as grief isunique, there's no one who can
step into your story or mine, inthat way, it's also universal.
And so we can come togetheraround those, those expressive
pieces, to to find a sense ofcommonality and understanding.
Joshua Johnson (39:12):
So after after all of you, you've learned to be
more embodied, to be rooted, bein the soil as a gardener, to
find hope in the midst of grief.
As you're you're producing thebulletin Christianity today,
right? And you, you actuallyhave to look at the loss and the
grief of the world. You have tosay, Okay, now, how do I live
(39:36):
faithfully in the midst of allof this suffering all over the
world and this crazy culturethat they're we're living in.
What have you learned throughyour micro process with your
your family to help navigatethese larger, systemic and
bigger cultural issues of lossand suffering that we have to
(39:57):
deal with in the world?
Clarissa Moll (40:00):
Right? I think the thing that I have hoped for
my children and for myself sincemy husband died was that our
loss wouldn't calcify us, itwouldn't harden our hearts, that
instead, it would break us open.
And I think about what BobPierce, a leader at World
Vision, a humanitarianorganization, said years ago, he
said, May my heart be broken bythe things that break the heart
of God. And so when I thinkabout my own experience in loss,
(40:21):
when I think about engaging withthe headlines, I was just
reading about struggles in theMiddle East today, even before I
came on to talk to you, and Iread those headlines now, where
I might have read them aspolitics before, or geopolitics,
foreign policy, I read them now,and I just see hurting people,
and I say, Lord, let my heart bebroken by the things that break
(40:43):
your heart. So when I thinkabout my engagement with the
news, what grief has taught meabout engaging with the world, I
just want to have a brokenheart. I sometimes I think,
Lord, I wish I'd never had toget to know you in this way. But
if it had to be this way, keepme tender. And so that's the
first thing, I think, the secondthing, and we began praying it
as a family. We began praying itevery single night. We would say
(41:06):
the words together as wesnuggled in bed, as my kids and
I would after story time, wewould gather on the floor and
then one of their bedrooms topray. We would end our prayers
with Jesus come quickly, becauseI think that if there's anything
we realize about engaging withthe loss in the world, it's that
we groan with all of creationfor all things to be made due.
(41:30):
And so in as much as I hope thatGod continues to break my heart
with the things that reallymatter, that I get the
perspective and the value shiftthat grief can bring, gosh, I
hope he comes soon. There isthat increased longing for the
kingdom of God to be mademanifest, for the new creation,
for that day when all tears arewiped away and the healing of
(41:52):
the nations comes likerevelation. Says, I look forward
to that more than I ever didbefore I lost Rob.
Joshua Johnson (42:02):
I know that as we're waiting and we're praying,
Jesus comes soon and make allthings new, we have the
privilege to actually join Jesusin restoring and reconciling all
things and trying to and makingthings new. Here with us. How
can we be foretaste of thiscoming Kingdom of the
consummation that will come andmake all things new as we live
(42:27):
in this broken world.
Unknown (42:29):
That's a tough question. That's a really tough
question.
Clarissa Moll (42:36):
I think that there is a word from one of
Paul's epistles, and thelocation slips me now where he
says, endeavor to live a quietlife, to mind your own business
and to work with your hands. Andwhen I think about the many ways
that I long for the inbreakingof God's kingdom and I want to
(42:56):
be a part of that, that versereminds me that I've got to have
my priorities straight, and I'vegot to keep the eternal things
in eternal perspective. I got tokeep the temporal things in
temporal perspective that thereare times where the best way for
me to engage in the inbreakingof the kingdom is to close my
mouth and just start getting myhands dirty. There's a time to
(43:19):
speak and a time to be silentand and the very best way that I
can be attuned to the Spirit'swork, to the spirits calling in
my life to participate in thatwork, is to have my priorities
rightly ordered. And I thinkPaul wouldn't have given those
instructions. I hope it's Paulthat I'm quoting here if he
didn't realize that that posturehappens on a very granular
(43:43):
level. We want to think about itas big and romantic, but no for
most of us, following God'scalling on our life to
participate in the good work ofredemption that he's doing means
a very granular day by day kindof obedience.
Joshua Johnson (43:59):
And if you are obedient, and you show up, and
you're present, and you're thebody presence where you're at,
and you're actually present withpeople, and that's going to make
a huge difference in this world.
And if we could all do that, andwe could actually look out for
our neighbors, each one of us,man, the world would be a better
place and a incredible place. Soit doesn't take much. It just
(44:22):
takes a lot of us,
Clarissa Moll (44:25):
that's right, many hands make light work
Joshua Johnson (44:27):
exactly, exactly. What hope do you have
for the people who pick up thisbook? Hope comes to stay. What
is What do you hope this bookdoes for for people?
Clarissa Moll (44:38):
I hope the kids will talk to their parents about
what it means to die, what itmeans to live life fully, what
it means to experience joy andhold sorrow in the same hand. I
have found that my kids aresuper smart. They're smarter
than I am sometimes, and so Ihope that that this book is a T.
(45:00):
Moment, not only for the kidswho pick it up, but perhaps for
the adults in whom those kids,you know, where those kids are
sitting in laps. That's
Joshua Johnson (45:10):
good couple of questions. One, Clarissa, if you
go back to your 21 year oldself, what advice would you
give?
Clarissa Moll (45:17):
I would say life is short. Live it well. Live it
well. Don't worry about financesand career ambitions. Love
people because that's what
Joshua Johnson (45:27):
lasts. Anything you've been reading or watching
lately, you could recommend I am
Clarissa Moll (45:31):
reading. I'm reading a book called Rising
from the plains by John McPhee.
He was a geologist, and hewrites about a section of
Wyoming where my husband and Iused to travel. We used to road
trip and camp out there. And notonly am I totally a rocks nerd
and I am interested in geology,reading McPhee is writing just
(45:52):
brings me back to a really sweettime in our marriage and and
brings back a lot of of sweetmemories about our life
together. How
Joshua Johnson (46:01):
can people go out get hope comes to stay. Is
there anywhere else you'd liketo point people to? How can they
connect with you?
Clarissa Moll (46:07):
Sure you can find more about me@clarissamall.com
and it's where all four of mybooks are available through that
website, or wherever books aresold. I hang out on substack and
Instagram as well. Love toconnect with listeners and
readers as you walk your ownpath toward flourishing.
Joshua Johnson (46:27):
Excellent. Well.
Clarissa, thank you for thisconversation. Thank you for
opening up the grief of yourlife to help us navigate the
grief in our life so that wecould hold each other, be
present with one another, and wecan know that God is with us,
that there is a persistent hope,that there is a hope that looks
like walking with one another,that there's companioning as
presence, that God is with us inthe valley of the shadow of
(46:51):
death, that his rod and hisstaff will comfort us. Thank you
for navigating this and thankyou for just walking us and
holding our hands to help othersreally navigate grief and loss
in ways that are healthy andthat they could grow with a
place where there is going to besome hope and there's some new
(47:12):
life at the end, even thoughthere's pain and sorrow and
thank you that there is acommunity that can walk with us
through this pain and loss. SoClarissa was a fantastic
conversation. I loved it. Thankyou. Thank you. You.
And gosh, does the church root us, not only in
(00:03):
the truth of our brokenness, butin the hope of Jesus, and it
holds for us those tensions thatwe see in the psalms of lament
in such a beautiful way that Ithink, wow, it takes a village
to raise a grieving person fromdeath to life again. You Joshua,
Joshua Johnson (00:32):
hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus, I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, grief
changes the shape of everything,and when children are involved,
it becomes even more tender,more complex and more vital to
hold with care after the suddendeath of her husband, Clarissa
(00:54):
mall found herself not onlygrieving the loss of a partner,
but becoming the guide her fourchildren needed through their
own sorrow. In thisconversation, Clarissa shares
what it means to parent throughloss with presence,
vulnerability and honesty. Weexplore how children process
grief over time, how they needlanguage, silence, play and
story to make sense of theirpain and how adults can become
(01:16):
safe places rather than fixers.
Clarissa offers practical wisdomand hard won insight for anyone
walking alongside a grievingchild or carrying their own
unspoken ache. We also talkabout what the church can do to
become a place of comfortinstead of pressure, how
community helps us rehearse thetruths we can't always speak
ourselves, and how hope lookslike staying when it would be
(01:39):
easier to leave. So join us fora conversation about grief,
resilience, belovedness and thelong patient work of walking
each other toward healing. Hereis my conversation with
Clarissa. Mall. Clarissa,welcome to shifting culture.
Thank you so much for joiningme. Excited to have you. Thanks
for having me. You have helped alot of people navigate grief and
(02:02):
loss and pain. You've beenfamiliar with grief, so tell me
your story about how you becamefamiliar with grief, and then
why you've decided not just togo through it yourself, but to
help others navigate grief aswell. Well,
Clarissa Moll (02:21):
I think, like most listeners, I would have
preferred to never have comeinto contact with loss, but it's
inevitable in one way oranother. During your lifetime,
the older you get, the more youlose loved ones, the more you
suffer disappointments and andrealize, in big ways, the
suffering and brokenness of theworld in 2019 my husband Rob
(02:42):
died in an accident on ourfamily vacation, leaving me a
widow with four kids to raise onmy own. And Rob had been a
journalist, he had actually beena hospice volunteer and had
worked the night shift at afuneral home. So even though his
death was a surprise to me andreally shattered, not only the
(03:04):
way that we lived as a family,but the way I perceived the
world to work in many ways, wehad already been having these
conversations for almost adecade in our marriage, as he
would sit with folks who weredying on the weekends, as he
would interact with grievingfamilies on the Night shift
there at the funeral home,answering questions, offering
basic support as they wereprocessing their goodbyes. And
(03:27):
so these conversations, eventhough I didn't want to have
them, we had little kids runningaround our ankles at that point,
they created a really strongfoundation for this most
difficult experience these lastsix years of now rebuilding and
living our lives without him. Idon't think that you can ever
really prepare for grief or thesorrow that is going to
(03:49):
blindside you at one point oranother in your life, but you
can have conversations about themechanics, the logistics, the
desires around endings, becauseeven though we want to avoid
those kind of conversations.
Becoming equipped has made allthe difference for me and for my
kids.
Joshua Johnson (04:07):
Being equipped is really important. But as
you're looking at navigatingthose questions early before his
death, you're looking at deaththat is expected, right? That
you could navigate a loss wherethis is a slow dying process.
And you can, you know, prayover. You could, you know, you
could recite some someliturgies, and you could talk
(04:30):
about the past and what you'relooking forward to in the
future. And you can say yourgoodbyes, and you can say, I
love you. What's the differencethen in sudden loss. And how's,
how does that hurt in wayswhere, maybe even, I mean,
navigating long term losses isis really difficult, and, you
(04:52):
know, we've done that and butwhat is sudden loss? Like, yeah,
Clarissa Moll (04:57):
that's a good question. I think it's, it's
something that. Folks say, Ican't even imagine what it's
like to stand and have policechaplains tell you in a single
sentence that your husband hasdied, that you're never going to
see his body, that this is overand it's it is really like the
curtain dropping suddenly in themiddle of a show that you
(05:18):
thought would last for at leastanother hour, if not you know
another 20 to 30 years and andsudden loss has that very
disorienting kind of effect onyour life. Shock is really
normal to come after learningsomething as disorienting as a
sudden loss can be, and it comeswith it all of these physical
(05:41):
parts of the grief experiencethat we often don't talk a whole
lot about, sleepless nights,changes in appetite, libido,
relational changes, all of thesekinds of things. Brain fog, you
know, the sense of like, I'd bedriving my kids to school and be
at a stoplight and think I don'tknow where to go. Where am I?
(06:01):
Where am I going? You know, justthe sense of living outside of
your own body and your own life,that's how disorienting sudden
loss can be. And because ofthat, our culture, you know,
doesn't sort of know what to do.
I'm a real unicorn, a young momwho's raised four kids on my
own. Woke up one morning a wifeand went to sleep the next a
widow and and so we don't knowhow to deal with those kinds of
(06:24):
losses because they are sounexpected, and we don't have a
culture or a language aroundtalking about or preparing for
those things when
Joshua Johnson (06:35):
you're navigating that. I mean, I, my
wife and I were in the MiddleEast for for many years. We
worked with war refugees, and sowe were navigating loss all over
the place, loss of homes, oflives, and, you know, children
trying to cope with with theloss, and moving really into a
new country and having a suddenchange. It's not an easy thing.
(06:59):
And there's, you know, a lot ofthings that we could do with
trauma. How did you navigate aplace of dealing with your grief
and then helping walk your kidsthrough grief and being there
for them and with them? Is thateven possible? Do you need other
people? What does that looklike?
Clarissa Moll (07:18):
Well, I think it's it's both, and yes, it's
possible. And yes, you can't doit by yourself, navigating loss
in a shared experience like wehad. It's kind of like being a
short order cook, you know, I'mmaking a different meal for
everybody at every point in theday, because one person's grief
is not serving up the same kindof symptoms and experience as
(07:39):
somebody else's kind of grief.
And if I try to feed everybodythe same meal, somebody's gonna
go hungry and somebody's gonnaget a belly ache because they
ate the wrong thing. And soreally, so much of dealing with
shared loss is about becomingstudents of one another,
becoming listeners in a waythat, for me as a parent, was
kind of a culture shift. I mean,I'm supposed to have all the
(07:59):
answers, right? As the mom I'msupposed to be the leader, my
kids looked to me as the newleader. Folks in my community
began to look to me as the newleader. And yet, within our four
walls, we were all stumbling.
And so one of the earlyconversations we had together as
a family, my youngest had justturned seven, my oldest was on
(08:20):
the verge of turning 14, and Iremember sitting down and being
like guys, we're a team now, andI may be the team captain, but
I'm also playing on the fieldwith you, and so we're going to
have to really improve ourcommunication. Be listening to
one another, be watching foranother, one another. We had a
rule in our house, no one criesalone unless they want to, which
(08:41):
implies that you're not going todo this by yourself unless
you're communicating that that'swhat your need is right now. And
so that really shifts the waysthat you interact with loss,
because even in as much as griefis universal, you know, I can't
understand your experience, youcan't step into mine, but we do
share this burden of brokenness.
It's also very unique, and itcan cause a lot of conflict when
(09:03):
families or communities who areexperiencing a shared loss
aren't able to really create andprovide the kind of space that's
required for that uniqueness toexist.
Joshua Johnson (09:16):
Well, especially you're navigating a culture in
America where you surprised ofindependence, of like I could do
this on my own, and you'retalking about about kids
speaking up for what they'refeeling and when you're
navigating those emotions. Imean, I don't know, I'm I don't
(09:37):
know if I've ever gotten intouch with my full emotions in
my body, and I'm still trying tofigure out, what am I actually
feeling? How do you help kidsnavigate their own emotions so
that they could speak up forwhat they need in the moment? I
Clarissa Moll (09:52):
think a lot of it is just getting quiet. You know,
for kids, so much of their livesare highly structured. They get
a lot of. Input coming in allday long, from school to sports
and after school activities,they're doing video games.
They're on screens. They've gotso much coming in, and it can be
hard to know yourself in themidst of all of that noise and
(10:13):
activity. And we, you know,nature abhors a vacuum. We hate
silence. My kids hate riding inthe car in silence, but there
are points where silence is thevery best gift that you can
offer to a child, to allow themto get in touch with their
emotions, not sitting in a roomall by themselves and like go
(10:33):
off and think for a littlewhile, Johnny, but giving them
age appropriate activities thatprovide a little brain space.
Because I think when we'reasking kids to access their
emotions, they know theiremotions intuitively, but
beginning to express themverbally requires a different
kind of skill building, and it'ssomething that the adults in
(10:55):
their lives have to be ready tonot even coach them, but perhaps
facilitate for them, becausethis is something that kids can
learn to do really well. I'vewatched my kids do it. I've
watched other kids do it, butit's not a given. They've got to
have a village of support tohelp them do it.
Joshua Johnson (11:13):
You just said that word facilitate. So then
what is facilitation look like?
How could we be betterfacilitators?
Clarissa Moll (11:21):
That's that's a really good question, and I
appreciate you asking, because Ithink that as adults, we assume
we're coming into this game witha whole lot of skills we got to
share and and really, what ourkids need when they're grieving,
honestly, what everybody needswhen they're grieving is not a
fixer. I mean, it doesn't takeyou long in experiencing a
(11:42):
divorce, a family estrangement,a job loss, some great
disappointment to realize thereare things you come up against
in life that cannot be fixed byhuman hands, that through effort
and intuition, through, youknow, sticking, you know,
getting your hands dirty, youjust can't do it. But what
everybody needs is somebody whowill say three things to them, I
(12:04):
love you, I'm sorry, and I'llstick around as long as it
takes. And I think, for a childwho's trying to figure out how
to grapple with big feelingsaround a loss, for the adults
who are looking to support them,those are the three best things
you could ever say, Hey Johnny,I love you. I'm super sorry that
your life has interacted with somuch brokenness. This is not as
(12:26):
it should be, and I'm going tostick around with you as long as
it takes. Maybe all I'm going tohave to say is I love you and
I'm sorry over and over again.
But those words are adequate,because they acknowledge the
things that can't be fixedeasily.
Joshua Johnson (12:40):
You know, I remember, it was a year and a
half ago, my, my mother in law,passed away. She lived with us.
So my son, who's just turnedeight, he knew life with her.
She lived with us. New life withher, only with her until she
passed away, and she she died.
And I remember in this room thatthat we renovated now is my
podcast studio office. There wasa broken chair in this corner,
(13:03):
and when we were starting torenovate, it was about it was
almost a year after she passedaway, and he just sat with that
chair, and for the first time,he broke down and he wept. He
didn't cry ever before that. Andthat was a year later where a an
(13:23):
object reminds, you know, my sonof his grandma, that she played
with him this, you know, thisairplane game with with that
chair, and it said, I'm nevergoing to be able to play that
again. And and he just wept. Howdo we navigate long term grief
with kids when we know that younever know what's going to come
(13:48):
up, and when the grief isoverwhelming and overflows, and
it's not just a one time thing,it happens over and over again
in our lives,
Clarissa Moll (14:02):
that's right? And Joshua, your your example is so
perfect, because that child wasgrieving from the day that the
news was announced, it just tooka different form, right? And so
for adults, it is thatattentiveness to Okay. I know
this is happening. It'ssimmering underground, if there
(14:22):
are rumbles of it, but it's notshowing up in particular ways.
And children grieve differentlythan adults do. They do that
sort of popcorn grieving, whereeverything seems fine, and then
they they get a bad grade on atest, and then it suddenly
becomes about grandma dying, andyou think, Whoa, where did how
did your brain connect those twothings? Well, they're intimately
connected, because even if achild isn't expressing their
(14:45):
grief in a ways that are adult,like they're still processing
it. And we know through researchthat children do what's called
regrieving, that they interactwith their loss again at every
new developmental milestone,with the growing understanding
that comes with age andmaturity. Right? So the little
child who loses a loved one atage seven or eight understands
it with a seven or eight yearold mind, but when he or she
(15:08):
gets to prom, to a firstboyfriend or girlfriend, to
graduation, to receiving adegree, whatever you know it
any, any number of myriadmilestones that loss comes back
and can hit in a brand new way,almost sometimes more raw and
tender than that incitingincident. And why is that? It's
(15:29):
not because the child hasn'tbeen processing all the time.
They've been metabolizing theirloss and integrating it into
their lives as they grow andchange. They just haven't had
the same kind of understandingof the weight of that loss until
that moment. And so thatpicture, you know, of I just
imagine this little boy in achair, and I think to myself,
yeah, that's how grief is. Andthen they get up and go play,
(15:52):
and that moment in the chairmatters. And the going off and
playing matters. And to us asadults, we're sort of looking
for a narrative that makessense, but that's not how
childhood grief works at all.
Joshua Johnson (16:04):
Then what changed as you were navigating
your grief? What did you learnin the discovery process and
then the research process thatnow helps you? You have more
tools. What are some of thetools that you picked up?
Clarissa Moll (16:18):
I think the number one thing as it relates
to children and teenagers isthat we got to start having
these conversations early. Wecan't wait until the moment. We
can't wait until after the fact.
You know, my I've got two headedto college this year, and so
we've been through the collegeapplication process and thinking
through writing that collegeessay, and my goodness, I'm sure
(16:38):
glad I didn't teach them theirABCs in the last 18 months,
because it would have made thosecollege application essays a
whole lot harder, right? Weteach our kids vocabulary. We
teach them ABCs long beforethey're ever going to need to
write that college essay. Why?
Because we want to equip them.
We don't want them to bestressed. We want them to be
able to express themselvesfully, and we want to do the
(17:01):
same thing with our kids aroundtough topics, sexuality and
grief and loss and so really,you know, when I think about my
research, about my own livedexperience, about the investment
of my husband's work and legacyin our lives, it's start the
conversation early. Talk aboutthe leaves in the fall dying and
waiting through winter forsomething to rise again in the
(17:23):
spring, talk about the pet thatdies. Talk about a news headline
in age appropriate language.
Talk about a school shootingthat's happened in a community
next to yours, and kind of parsethat out. Use any opportunity to
talk about the fragility of lifewith your kid in age appropriate
language, because you're givingthem the building blocks for a
(17:45):
vocabulary that's going tobenefit them for the rest of
their lives.
Joshua Johnson (17:49):
Because your kids were growing up you you
were out in nature a lot. Youknow, I was in the Pacific
Northwest there. I grew upthere. As you're looking at
nature, one of the things thatyou do see is, is this process
of death and new life andrebirth, and even under the
ground, things are are growing.
How do we look at what ishappening in the natural world
(18:13):
to help us navigate transitionsand changes of seasons and new
life, and hold on to some hope,knowing that even in the
darkness of winter, whereeverything seems like there's no
life, there's only death, thereis a spring coming, there is
something that is going to shootup from the ground, where we see
some new sprigs of life.
Clarissa Moll (18:37):
Yeah, I'm an avid gardener. I've become that in
the last few years especially,and there are a lot of things
I've learned from my time in thesoil. The first one is that you
never know what's going tothrive and what's going to fail.
And the job of the gardener isnot that end result. The job of
the gardener is faithfulness.
And so in our experience ofteaching our kids about grief.
(19:01):
It's less about outcomes and farmore about process. It is about
helping our kids understand thatthe seeds we sow in being honest
about our grief, using reallanguage around death and loss,
talking to people, expressingourselves, all of those seeds
are going to bear fruit in someways, but you don't know which
(19:22):
ones and in what ways. So a goodgardener doesn't sow one seed in
the field. A good gardener sowsa lot of seeds, and interacting
with your grief, engaging withit, takes a lot of work. But
then there's also this beautifulseason of waiting that is
essential for a gardener tounderstand. You can put in the
(19:42):
work, but then you just gottasit and wait for the sun to come
out. You gotta wait for therain. You know you could, you
can turn on that sprinkler, butthere is a lot that is beyond
your control. And you know whenyou're experiencing loss, when
you're experiencing uncertainty,especially for children. In the
waiting period can be superhard, and as parents, we want to
hurry that along press the fastforward button. We want to save
(20:06):
them from the discomfort of thewaiting. We want to hurry them
up to a solution. We want totake away anything else hard
that could happen to them. Butthere is essential work that is
happening in the waiting, in allthose seeds of investment that
you have planted in integratingyour grief and doing the hard
work of grieving in a healthyway. You are waiting for God to
work. You're waiting for yourcommunity to have time to catch
(20:30):
their breath and come aroundyou. You're waiting for your own
heart to be ready for whateverGod is calling you to next.
Because the reality is, afterloss, you don't want to just
survive. You want to thriveagain. And thriving takes a lot
of work, but it also takesseasons of waiting and rest. And
I think kids can see that, youknow, you get a pack of radish
(20:51):
seeds from the local hardwarestore, plant them in a paper cup
and set them on your windowsill,and you got that object lesson
right there about the kind ofwork that needs to be just a
normal. Part of the warp andwoof of living with grief and
loss
Joshua Johnson (21:07):
is waiting, and waiting is not fun, especially
in the culture that we live innow. We want to rush past grief.
We want to get things done. Wewant to be productive like we're
a productive society and soproductivity, we see ourselves
as machines and not humans. Sohow do we become more grief
(21:28):
literate within our communities?
And how do we help people waitand be people that Wait. Wait
for God to act. Wait for God tocome around us. Wait for
community to be with us. Howcould we become more grief
literate as community? I
Clarissa Moll (21:45):
think Scripture gives us this beautiful picture
of that in the psalms of lament.
You know, throughout the psalmsof lament, we see someone who is
raging against God, who isasking a lot of questions,
expressing despair, anger,frustration, deep sadness and
brokenness, and in a sense,being like, hurry up, God, I'm
(22:06):
ready whenever you want to takethis away. I'm first in line,
right? But the sums of lamentgive us this beautiful picture
that says, okay, we can holdthat sense of urgency to want to
get past the hard thing in thesame hand as worship and resting
in the Lord. Well, how do yourest in the Lord in the valley
(22:27):
of the shadow when you have noidea where the path is going to
lead you, when barely the lampat your feet and the light at
your path is giving you morethan a couple inches worth of
light to go on you do the thingsthat the psalmist does in those
psalms of lament. He neverexplains, really, how he gets
from despair to a sense of restin God's character, all he does
(22:50):
is begin reciting it over andover again to his heart the
truth that he knows. And I thinkyou know, as we are in that
waiting season, as we're tryingto figure out what next is,
we're trying to jump off theconveyor belt of productivity.
It's about rehearsing toourselves the truths that we
know about God, even when it'sso dark in our lives we can
(23:12):
barely see to discern that theystill exist. And for that to
happen, you've got to havecommunity to come around you.
When my husband first died, thenumber one place that was
hardest to return to was church.
It just didn't feel like we fitanymore. A mom with four kids,
the gaping space next to mewhere my husband used to sit in
(23:34):
the pew, the happy songs when wedidn't feel happy, the noise
when we just felt like we had nowords and wanted to be silent,
the people who were well meaningbut reached out, and we didn't
know what to do with that kindof care, and you know, we
grappled with how to manage thatover time. But the one thing
(23:55):
that church gave me, that Icould find in no other place,
was the people who rehearsed thetruths of God's character to me
when I could no longer say themfor myself. I could stand in
that congregation on a Sundaymorning with no words and tears
streaming down my face, and Iwould hear people sing around me
the truths of God. I would hearthe words spoken from the front
(24:17):
washing over me, the words ofGod when I couldn't even open my
Bible. And so for me, you know,I think about this desire for
productivity, our desire to getaway from the bad things. And
gosh, does the church root us,not only in the truth of our
brokenness, but in the hope ofJesus. And it holds for us those
tensions that we see in thepsalms of lament in such a
(24:40):
beautiful way that I think, wow,it takes a village to raise a
grieving person from death tolife again.
Joshua Johnson (24:47):
I think that's really important, is to rehearse
those truths and rehearse thestory of God so that you could
know you're here and you'represent, and that we, we could
have this wash over us, and youdon't have to do anything. You
have the. Community around you.
You know, in your, yourchildren's book, he wrote, it's
called hope comes to stay. A lotof people when, when I think of
of hope in the midst of ofgrief, some people might, might
(25:10):
say, Well, hope is, is toohappy, clappy, it's too much
like, is it real? Like, is hopereal in the midst of grief. So
can you define what hope is andis hope possible in grief?
Clarissa Moll (25:29):
I think that's the number one thing that I want
for kids to understand as theybegin to grapple with the
brokenness of the world and howgrief and loss can intersect
with their lives. My number onefavorite character in Scripture
is Naomi, because she is a classa grump. She loses her husband,
she loses her sons, and she hasno problem talking about it. She
(25:52):
returns to her home and herfriends welcome her back, and
she's like, call me bitter. Idon't even have a name anymore.
And what do we see her doing?
It's just miraculous how thewriter of Ruth describes her
transformation. We don't see theinner workings of her heart
where she's hashing it out withGod. We see her just simply
putting one foot in front of theother and doing the next right
(26:14):
thing. And at the end of thebook of Ruth, she gets this new
grandbaby set in her lap, andthose same friends who greeted
her to her disdain at thebeginning now say Naomi has
another son. They recognize thegrowth in her life, and they're
able to rejoice with her. And sowhat is hope? Hope has legs.
(26:35):
Hope takes a step forward evenwhen it doesn't seem like it's
worth it, even when the light isnot there to follow. Hope is
Naomi. It's walking forward,entrusting yourself to a God who
is wiser and better than you canimagine, and linking arms with a
community who will sometimesdrag you kicking and streaming
(26:57):
toward that hope, but will pointyour feet toward it.
Nonetheless,
Joshua Johnson (27:02):
if it is one foot in front of the other, if
it is it is walking, there'salso like Naomi had had
companions with her thatwouldn't leave so hope isn't
just a feeling that it is alsoan embodied presence with
people. How can we, as the bodyof Christ, as the embodied
(27:24):
presence of Jesus, be hope inthe midst of grief for people,
Clarissa Moll (27:30):
I think the number one way is to stick
around. So many of us aretransient in our relationships.
Friends come in and out of ourlives. We move and we lose touch
with people. Are ourrelationships with folks, sort
of, they disintegrate into textrelationships instead of real,
(27:51):
embodied relationships. And soreally, for the church, it's to
do what we have always donebest, to say the God who has not
left me or forsaken me, tells methat's my job now too for you, I
am called to be the hands andfeet of Jesus, and I don't have
all the answers like he does.
I'm still living in that spaceof mystery alongside of you, but
I will do the thing that Jesushas done for me, and that is to
(28:14):
stick around I love how Isaiahsays that Jesus was a man who
was deeply acquainted withgrief, and in Hebrew, that word
deeply acquainted means friendJesus was willing to link arms
with grief and walk forward withit on our behalf. And I think
that's the very best gift thatwe can offer to our grieving
(28:35):
friends, to say, I'm going tolink arms with the saddest stuff
in your life, and I'm going tostick around and walk with you
toward resurrection.
Joshua Johnson (28:44):
What do we need to do to get rid of the
distractions so that we can bepresent with each other, that we
can maybe become human again?
Clarissa Moll (28:56):
First, use those notifications on your phone to
to a good purpose. Get thatfriend, get that friend's phone
number and mark on yourcalendar, on your phone when
their date of loss is, mark thatwith an alarm. Mark it six
months from now. Mark it threemonths from now. Mark it a year
from now, so that when yourphone pings you, you can reach
(29:19):
out and say, hey, you know what?
I know. This is a tough day foryou. Just want you to know I'm
thinking of you. That's thefirst one is, get super, super
practical. The second one is,while you're working on that,
that alarm on your phone, clearyour calendar, the presence, the
embodied presence that grievingpeople need most, takes up space
and when we are so super busyourselves, it's really hard to
(29:42):
create space for others. So makesure that every yes that you're
making is a worthwhile one,because every yes to one thing
that seems good is a no tosomething else. And we always
want to make our yeses to peopleand things that matter. Matter
in an eternal perspective, andwe want to make sure that our
nos are appropriate as well. Andso as you're thinking about your
(30:06):
calendar, create space for griefto show up and create space to
not only grieve yourself, butoffer yourself in love to
someone else.
Joshua Johnson (30:18):
In this process, it's been, you know, six years.
Where have you found hope? Wheredoes the hope come to stay for
you?
Clarissa Moll (30:26):
You know, I think it's different. On any given
day, we're recording this just afew years, few days before the
sixth anniversary of myhusband's death, we're recording
this on a Monday, and in onSaturday, it will be the sixth
year. And sometimes I think tomyself, gosh, I don't I don't
know how I woke up breathingthis morning, like, how am I
(30:47):
still here? And he's still gone,and in some days, it feels like
it's been forever since I sawhim, like I can't even remember
what it meant to hold his handor to be held by him. And so I
think, for me, hope is is amoment by moment. Remember being
remembered by God. My husbandwas memorizing First John in the
(31:11):
months before he died. And youknow, one of the words that
rises up from First John overand over again is that word
Beloved. And I think for me,hope is all about resting in my
belovedness. So maybe that is atext from a friend that reminds
me of my belovedness a beautifulsunrise on the way to drive one
of my kids to an early bandpractice before school that
(31:34):
says, hey, Clarissa, you're notforgotten. Hope shows up in so
many different ways, but chancesare it's not something that I've
been able to drum up myself, andit is fragile. It is fleeting,
and that's how I know thatthere's got to be more coming.
CS Lewis says that all thethings that we experience now
that are joyful are just aforetaste of the thing that is
(31:56):
yet to come, that bettercountry. And so I think for us,
that blessed hope is it's justan appetizer, but I'll take it
knowing that the full meal isstill ahead.
Joshua Johnson (32:06):
What a beautiful thing that the full meal is
still ahead, and that we do getforetastes of this. We don't.
It's not just hey, it's there.
There's just despair andloneliness and horrible things
here on Earth. There is someforetaste that we get. We get
some, some heaven on earth,which is fantastic. And I thank
God that he's there. And sothink of like, what are your
(32:29):
belovedness? I think that if wesee ourselves as beloved
children of God, it changes, itchanges everything. That's it.
It's that we're the beloved ofGod that changes my orientation
of striving towards, you know,trying to make God love me or or
whatever, especially in thesethese processes of loss. What
(32:53):
does belovedness do? The to knowthe truth that you are the
beloved child of God that Heloves you as his own because you
are. I think it means
Clarissa Moll (33:07):
different things to different people. For me, it
has been very much about thefather, love of God. It's kind
of a funny thing in some ways,because I didn't lose my dad, my
kids lost their dad. I lost aspouse, a partner. But what I
found over the last six yearsthat I have needed the very most
is a father, someone who wouldlet me be small and weak and and
(33:31):
so when I think of belovednessand resting in my belovedness, I
think of that verse fromZephaniah, where God is
delighting over us with His lovethat he rejoices over us with
singing this idea that we arecarried by his love into a world
that's super difficult, but he'sbigger than all of that. And I
(33:51):
think for me, in this season,resting in the father, love of
God has been the most intimateexpression and understanding of
that belovedness for me,
Joshua Johnson (34:01):
I think a lot of people, I agree with you, to let
you be small and weak is reallyimportant as a parent, of
helping kids navigate theirgrief. I think being small and
weak to me feels like, oh, man,I don't know if I'm doing it
right. How do we work that outwith kids of knowing that, hey,
(34:22):
I'm vulnerable, I'm weak, I'msmall, like, I need help. I'm
not, you know, I'm noteverything for you kids. So how
do we do that, and how do we dothat in a healthy way that
doesn't think that you'veabandoned kids as well? Like,
what? What's the how do wenavigate that? I
Clarissa Moll (34:42):
think, for children and for adults as well,
it's about learning tounderstand the sort of circles
of intimacy that exist in thelives that we live in in
relationship with one another.
There's this beautiful imagethat the illustrator of hope
comes to stay has in our bookof. Little Leela walking with
her mother as she approachesschool for the first day after
(35:03):
her dad has died, and she's gother little bear there that she's
holding on to that's sort ofsymbolic for her of this loss.
And she decides that she doesn'twant to bring the bear there,
that this is a space where shewants grief to just be quiet.
And I think it's okay to teachchildren that there are varying
levels of intimacy that weengage with in our lives with
(35:26):
one another. There are varyinglevels of vulnerability that are
appropriate in our relationshipswith one another. You know, we
live in a culture that has theseweird polars we overshare on
Tiktok and and it's a lot, it's,it's a lot of ugly, ugly cries
and dancing that you're probablygoing to regret in 10 to 15
years. And then on the otherside of that, we say, pull
(35:48):
yourself up by your bootstraps.
Come on, man shoulder on. BigBoys, don't cry. And so our kids
are, you know, in this pendulumswinging from one end to the
next. And really, it's not thatextremes are where we want to
end up. It's that we want toteach our children to discern in
(36:09):
each moment. Okay, is this aperson that I can be vulnerable
with? How weak can I be withthis person? I'm going to throw
out some exploratory questions.
I'm going to watch to see howthey respond to suffering in
other people, in a crowd or in agroup that I'm in, I'm going to
learn to really be a detectivewhen it comes to human
relationships, and then I'mgoing to, little by little, put
(36:30):
myself out there, test thewaters a little bit. And so
we're teaching our kids theserelational skills as it relates
to vulnerability, so thatthey're able to do that
practicing now within thescaffolding of their family, but
do it well when they becometeenagers and adults figuring
out, okay, who can I explorethese hard feelings with and and
(36:52):
be weak with, and explore whatit means to be my beloved, to
explore my belovedness in areally intimate and tender way.
And where do I need to say, hey,you know, I don't think this
relationship is ready for thatyet, or may never be ready for
that kind of conversation,
Joshua Johnson (37:10):
you know, and hope comes to say you're using
storytelling to help kidsnavigate their loss and grief.
What is the role then of storyand art to help actually
navigate these things with us.
Clarissa Moll (37:24):
Well, for little children, there's something we
call parallel play. And ifyou're a parent, you've seen
your kids do it, you invite themover, another family over for a
play date, and you expect thekids to play together, and they
just sort of sit next to eachother, never talking, but
playing Legos. And you think,How can this be a play date?
Didn't you interact at all? Butthe reality is that a lot of
learning happens throughparallel play for kids, that in
(37:48):
as much as we there is adidactic nature, a teaching
nature to the relationships thatthey have with one another, and
sometimes we see that go awrywith their peers, there's also a
parallel play kind of learning,and a story gives a really non
confrontational, low stressentry point for parallel play, a
child getting to watch anotherchild navigate through seasons
(38:11):
of loss. So when it comes tochildren, stories are a really
good way to introduce bigconcepts in a way that kids can
watch and not feel like they'reput on the spot. But I think the
same thing works for us too. Youknow, there are certain movies
or stories that, gosh, I don'tknow how many times I've seen
them, but they bring me to tearsevery time. And why is that?
(38:33):
Because I noticed somethingparallel in my life that is
expressed in that story. Thereare differences. I can
acknowledge those but there's acommonality, a common truth and
and that brings me along. Itfills in the gaps where the
story might be different. And sowhen I think about stories and
art, I think of them as a vitalconnection for grieving people,
(38:55):
because in as much as grief isunique, there's no one who can
step into your story or mine, inthat way, it's also universal.
And so we can come togetheraround those, those expressive
pieces, to to find a sense ofcommonality and understanding.
Joshua Johnson (39:12):
So after after all of you, you've learned to be
more embodied, to be rooted, bein the soil as a gardener, to
find hope in the midst of grief.
As you're you're producing thebulletin Christianity today,
right? And you, you actuallyhave to look at the loss and the
grief of the world. You have tosay, Okay, now, how do I live
(39:36):
faithfully in the midst of allof this suffering all over the
world and this crazy culturethat they're we're living in.
What have you learned throughyour micro process with your
your family to help navigatethese larger, systemic and
bigger cultural issues of lossand suffering that we have to
(39:57):
deal with in the world?
Clarissa Moll (40:00):
Right? I think the thing that I have hoped for
my children and for myself sincemy husband died was that our
loss wouldn't calcify us, itwouldn't harden our hearts, that
instead, it would break us open.
And I think about what BobPierce, a leader at World
Vision, a humanitarianorganization, said years ago, he
said, May my heart be broken bythe things that break the heart
of God. And so when I thinkabout my own experience in loss,
(40:21):
when I think about engaging withthe headlines, I was just
reading about struggles in theMiddle East today, even before I
came on to talk to you, and Iread those headlines now, where
I might have read them aspolitics before, or geopolitics,
foreign policy, I read them now,and I just see hurting people,
and I say, Lord, let my heart bebroken by the things that break
(40:43):
your heart. So when I thinkabout my engagement with the
news, what grief has taught meabout engaging with the world, I
just want to have a brokenheart. I sometimes I think,
Lord, I wish I'd never had toget to know you in this way. But
if it had to be this way, keepme tender. And so that's the
first thing, I think, the secondthing, and we began praying it
as a family. We began praying itevery single night. We would say
(41:06):
the words together as wesnuggled in bed, as my kids and
I would after story time, wewould gather on the floor and
then one of their bedrooms topray. We would end our prayers
with Jesus come quickly, becauseI think that if there's anything
we realize about engaging withthe loss in the world, it's that
we groan with all of creationfor all things to be made due.
(41:30):
And so in as much as I hope thatGod continues to break my heart
with the things that reallymatter, that I get the
perspective and the value shiftthat grief can bring, gosh, I
hope he comes soon. There isthat increased longing for the
kingdom of God to be mademanifest, for the new creation,
for that day when all tears arewiped away and the healing of
(41:52):
the nations comes likerevelation. Says, I look forward
to that more than I ever didbefore I lost Rob.
Joshua Johnson (42:02):
I know that as we're waiting and we're praying,
Jesus comes soon and make allthings new, we have the
privilege to actually join Jesusin restoring and reconciling all
things and trying to and makingthings new. Here with us. How
can we be foretaste of thiscoming Kingdom of the
consummation that will come andmake all things new as we live
(42:27):
in this broken world.
Unknown (42:29):
That's a tough question. That's a really tough
question.
Clarissa Moll (42:36):
I think that there is a word from one of
Paul's epistles, and thelocation slips me now where he
says, endeavor to live a quietlife, to mind your own business
and to work with your hands. Andwhen I think about the many ways
that I long for the inbreakingof God's kingdom and I want to
(42:56):
be a part of that, that versereminds me that I've got to have
my priorities straight, and I'vegot to keep the eternal things
in eternal perspective. I got tokeep the temporal things in
temporal perspective that thereare times where the best way for
me to engage in the inbreakingof the kingdom is to close my
mouth and just start getting myhands dirty. There's a time to
(43:19):
speak and a time to be silentand and the very best way that I
can be attuned to the Spirit'swork, to the spirits calling in
my life to participate in thatwork, is to have my priorities
rightly ordered. And I thinkPaul wouldn't have given those
instructions. I hope it's Paulthat I'm quoting here if he
didn't realize that that posturehappens on a very granular
(43:43):
level. We want to think about itas big and romantic, but no for
most of us, following God'scalling on our life to
participate in the good work ofredemption that he's doing means
a very granular day by day kindof obedience.
Joshua Johnson (43:59):
And if you are obedient, and you show up, and
you're present, and you're thebody presence where you're at,
and you're actually present withpeople, and that's going to make
a huge difference in this world.
And if we could all do that, andwe could actually look out for
our neighbors, each one of us,man, the world would be a better
place and a incredible place. Soit doesn't take much. It just
(44:22):
takes a lot of us,
Clarissa Moll (44:25):
that's right, many hands make light work
Joshua Johnson (44:27):
exactly, exactly. What hope do you have
for the people who pick up thisbook? Hope comes to stay. What
is What do you hope this bookdoes for for people?
Clarissa Moll (44:38):
I hope the kids will talk to their parents about
what it means to die, what itmeans to live life fully, what
it means to experience joy andhold sorrow in the same hand. I
have found that my kids aresuper smart. They're smarter
than I am sometimes, and so Ihope that that this book is a T.
(45:00):
Moment, not only for the kidswho pick it up, but perhaps for
the adults in whom those kids,you know, where those kids are
sitting in laps. That's
Joshua Johnson (45:10):
good couple of questions. One, Clarissa, if you
go back to your 21 year oldself, what advice would you
give?
Clarissa Moll (45:17):
I would say life is short. Live it well. Live it
well. Don't worry about financesand career ambitions. Love
people because that's what
Joshua Johnson (45:27):
lasts. Anything you've been reading or watching
lately, you could recommend I am
Clarissa Moll (45:31):
reading. I'm reading a book called Rising
from the plains by John McPhee.
He was a geologist, and hewrites about a section of
Wyoming where my husband and Iused to travel. We used to road
trip and camp out there. And notonly am I totally a rocks nerd
and I am interested in geology,reading McPhee is writing just
(45:52):
brings me back to a really sweettime in our marriage and and
brings back a lot of of sweetmemories about our life
together. How
Joshua Johnson (46:01):
can people go out get hope comes to stay. Is
there anywhere else you'd liketo point people to? How can they
connect with you?
Clarissa Moll (46:07):
Sure you can find more about me@clarissamall.com
and it's where all four of mybooks are available through that
website, or wherever books aresold. I hang out on substack and
Instagram as well. Love toconnect with listeners and
readers as you walk your ownpath toward flourishing.
Joshua Johnson (46:27):
Excellent. Well.
Clarissa, thank you for thisconversation. Thank you for
opening up the grief of yourlife to help us navigate the
grief in our life so that wecould hold each other, be
present with one another, and wecan know that God is with us,
that there is a persistent hope,that there is a hope that looks
like walking with one another,that there's companioning as
presence, that God is with us inthe valley of the shadow of
(46:51):
death, that his rod and hisstaff will comfort us. Thank you
for navigating this and thankyou for just walking us and
holding our hands to help othersreally navigate grief and loss
in ways that are healthy andthat they could grow with a
place where there is going to besome hope and there's some new
(47:12):
life at the end, even thoughthere's pain and sorrow and
thank you that there is acommunity that can walk with us
through this pain and loss. SoClarissa was a fantastic
conversation. I loved it. Thankyou. Thank you. You.
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