Grief and loss are part of the universal human experience. Whether it be the grief of losing a loved one or the grief that accompanies the loss of faith, the grief that floods in when you consider the state of our world or the grief that hovers over the loss of a dream, during our lives we will all spend at least a bit of time on the road called grief.

And it has been my experience that all grief is a miscarriage of sorts; something we dreamed would be, something we expected, for some reason, often an unknown reason, fails to make it to full term, and we grieve the loss.

Now miscarriage is something we don’t often talk about in public and many don’t even acknowledge that it has happened or that in it, is great loss. This is why I believe it is such an effective image for so much of the grief in our own culture. For grief, like miscarriage, is something we rarely name and barely acknowledge, unless there is an actual casket and even then we put time limits on how long we believe someone is allowed to grieve.

Perhaps this is why so many end up in so much unnamed pain and just trying to make it through the day. Maybe it’s because so many of the dreams and expectations we’ve had have miscarried and we've not known there are actually well ways to walk through the losses of this life.

My personal losses are varied and include childhood trauma, a decade of hope and disappointment with recurrent pregnancy loss, the loss of my faith community and, for a season, my sense of self.

I hope you will join me for an exploration of grief and some of the well ways that we can walk through it together. I am limiting the group to 12 people so that we will have a chance to get to know one another a bit. If you are interested, complete the registration form below. Please keep responses succinct as we will have further conversation for you to share more in-depth. Registration will close on July 31.