I’m not sure if anyone read one of my previous posts about me taking a break from my website and social media early last month. Like so many others, I’ve dealing with a loss of a loved one this year. Although it hurts to deal with it, I decided to face my grief head on.

Grief or loss of any kind is one of those painful things we as humans have to deal with. While some choose to deal with grief, others choose to avoid their grief altogether or use/participate in various things to try to escape their grief.

1. Deal with your feelings!

Yes, medical school kept me busy and helped me to take my mind off of what was going on (from time to time, especially later on in the grieving process), it’s still important to deal with your feelings instead of burying them or constantly doing things to try to distract yourself from grief. Why? If you don’t deal with your feelings now they will eventually come up when you least suspect it. It can be tomorrow or years from now. While you are distracting yourself with various activities or using using substances to numb your feelings, the goal is to appear ok, when in fact you a prisoner to your own grief. You may seem OK on the outside, but once you get home behind closed doors, you can feel absolutely miserable (or worse). So, as uncomfortable as it might be, deal with your feelings head on!

How do I worship God? Well, start by intentionally worshipping Him. Carve some time out of your schedule to spend time with Him. I started out by searching on Youtube for various songs we sang at my church. Sometimes I would just listen to the lyrics, other times I would sing along to them. Eventually I would lift my hands and even dance while singing along and worshipping Him.

After some time of intentionally worshipping Him, it became like second nature to me. In fact, I couldn’t wait to spend time with God this way! I would praise Him through the good times and the bad. Magnifying His name over my problems and my pain. So when my loved one passed away, despite how hard it was to praise God, I knew that God was the only one to give me comfort during this time. And honestly, spending time with Him in these various ways were the only things that would give me comfort, especially early on in the grieving process.

Below I have some praise & worship videos that I saved in the playlist over the years (since early 2015 I believe). Yes, this is the same playlist I listen to/watch through the good times and the bad, including going through this recent loss. Feel free to listen to it if you’d like.

So I noticed that I had 238 videos on the playlist, but on 200 of them were showing. As a result, I went ahead and made another playlist to add the 38 videos that weren’t showing up. If you’re interested in listening or watching that other playlist, I’ll post it at the end of this post.

1) Listening to instrumental worship music
This is one way I soak in His presence. I pray once I start listening to the instrumental worship music (I mainly listen to DappyTKeys Piano Worship, check him out!) and just sit or lay down in silence as I listen to the worship music.

2) Listening to rain drops, ocean waves, and other calming natural sounds
This is pretty similar to listening to instrumental praise & worship music. The point is not to have words that can distract us. I personal do this before bed, right after I read the Bible. Technically the way I do this is more like meditation, but it is still soaking in His presence. While listening to the Abide app’s music, I think about the Bible verses I just read and usually drift off to sleep after some time.

3) Praise & Worship
Wait a minute, I thought you already mentioned this earlier. I did! Praise & worship is another good way to soak in God’s presence. The difference here is that I’m not singing or dancing, but sitting or laying down quietly just meditating on God’s goodness and sometimes the lyrics.

In fact, while meditating a couple of days after my loved one passed, God reminded me of the story of Lazarus. I’ll post it under the Soul Food section.

I think I mentioned them before, but I also use the Abide meditation app when meditating, but especially for sleeping. It’s an excellent resource for those that Biblically guided meditations/mindfulness.

Grief Share is also a wonderful resource and is typically offered at many churches. They sometimes offer classes, led by someone from the church, for you to open up about your grief and receive prayer in a safe place. I’m personally looking forward to starting Grief Share at my church next month. In the meantime, I’m waiting for one of my family members to finish reading the Grief Share book that was given to me by one of my mentors.

If you are a student (whether college, graduate, or professional), your student health center should provide FREE counseling service. The school mental health services might even have more availability than your normal provider. Definitely check them out!

Please feel free to visit my Mental Health post for more mental health resources. It’s not an extensive list, but feel free to check it out.

I wasn’t intending to make this a very long post, but grief is complex and I didn’t want to just brush over everything.

As I was told by one of the education specialists at my school, grief comes in waves (especially since it’s still fresh for me). So I’d be lying if I said I was truly over the grieving process. I do miss my loved one, feel sad and sometimes cry from time to time. It’s a normal part of the grieving process.

For anyone one reading this dealing with loss,
I pray that the Lord comforts you and gives you strength to keep going during this difficult time.

As promised, here’s part two of my worship playlists.