• We’re authentically engaging the emotions that come with loss – rather than stuffing or denying them. As many grief experts say, “You can’t heal what you can’t feel.”

• We’re protesting the injustice of the loss, which we are truly convinced of – rather than acting like it was OK with us.

• We’re expressing that we deeply wish that the loss had never occurred – rather than minimizing it.

• We’re facing the devastating impact of the loss head on, absorbing it and eventually mastering it – rather than running from it, deflecting it or pretending it didn’t happen, only to have its effects hit us again and again.

• We are allowing our right brain to replay the tapes of our traumatic episodic memories in a safe environment, thereby robbing them of their terror and integrating them into our rebuilding life.

• We’re inviting Jesus to enter the dark forest of our pain, experience it with us, comfort us in the midst of it and walk us out the other side of it – rather than sitting passively alone and paralyzed at the edge.