During the sixth year of my appointment as senior pastor of a vibrant, community-focused, downtown church, my husband committed suicide. It happened on Thanksgiving night in the parsonage following a peaceful day with extended family and our Thanksgiving evening ritual of a sentimental holiday movie. Based on what I now know, I believe that my affectionate and eccentric husband—with nearly twenty years of sobriety in recovery—was suffering from some degree of Bipolar Disorder. At the time, however, I was completed blindsided. 

Eleven years later, I am still tending my grief. And I invite you to join me in pondering these questions, as leaders:

• How might we cultivate resilience and positive energy while navigating the patterns of loss and renewal that pervade our lives?

• How do we measure that we have honored and attended well to grief and loss while serving effectively?

William Bridges, a transition management consultant, described transition as the necessary interior shift between any ending in life and a new beginning. Change is the external, situational shift. Transition is what happens inside us when our external reality changes.   

Based on his definition, most leaders are in the midst of one or more transitions much of the time. 

I am thinking—in particular—of the grieving among leaders within the United Methodist Church as the process of disaffiliation continues. For all UMC church leaders, this transition has been woven closely with the losses of the Covid-19 pandemic.

As we ponder, I offer two simple reminders and one invitation:

1. Everyone grieves differently. For some of us, grief (as in tears, allowing sadness) flows easily.  For others, grief is challenging or delayed.  Suzanne Stabile, renowned Enneagram teacher, says that some Enneagram types have more trouble grieving in real time.  I am one of those. So, it is helpful not to assume someone is not grieving, just because they do not show outward signs of mourning. I returned to lead my church—with a modified schedule—only six weeks after my husband’s death. That modified schedule included significant margins—with space to write, seek spiritual direction, engage with a therapist, and attend yoga classes where I lay in svanasana with a towel over my face as tears rolled down my cheeks.

   A colleague of mine had not identified grief during a crisis transition.  Then he noticed he was running stop signs, missing appointments, and forgetting things frequently. So, he got help. The signals are different for different folks.

2. Any new loss triggers old grief. The husband of a church member called me when his wife could not stop crying after they sold their home. He said, “She didn’t cry this much when she lost her mother.” Another colleague lost her father two years ago. She describes the little things that still trigger her tears—the smell of her son’s athletic socks when she knew her father would have attended the boy’s games, the slightest scent of her father’s cologne on an item of his that she’d saved. We do not control what triggers our grief.

3. Intentionally make space for grieving. It took me a few weeks to identify grief, when ten years after my husband’s suicide, I entered the most challenging cycle of sadness I’d known. It was in that delayed season of grieving, that I remembered how important it is to intentionally make space for grieving. We need open space, empty space, being time. In it, we pause from external stimulation and from our ongoing, unconscious, rumination to notice and name what we are experiencing. We allow the feeling, and rather than pushing it away, we get curious about it. We turn to the sadness and ask, “Who are you and what are you trying to teach me?”

A wellbeing exercise that has helped me in seasons of grieving is what I call write like a psalmist. The Psalms bring every emotion before God with honesty and trust. One colleague told me that his journaling practice changed following emergency triple bypass surgery. He said he previously journaled “like he was trying to write Max Lucado devotionals” but during his long recovery from the crisis of open heart surgery, his journal writing became more messy, real, and raw. Old Testament scholar Walter Bruggeman invites leaders in the church to learn from the Psalms what it means to bring all of life into conversation with God. He says that we miss the entire intention of the Psalms when we attempt to read, pray, and interpret them from a pretended posture of equilibrium. The Psalms invite us to bring every emotion—even the most painful—into conversation with God.

In the inevitable seasons of loss and transition, make time to pay attention to your grief. Make space to notice and allow your sadness or anger. Get curious about it with God. Practice the vulnerability of sharing with a trusted friend or family member. And receive the gift of newness—new life, new beginnings—that comes when we allow and honor every emotion—no matter how painful. Our wellbeing depends upon it.