Finding Joy in the Mourning

Well guys, the Life After Loss Conference was pretty great!

Kev took me down Thursday to pre-record my presentation in the studio.

Hopefully Chris (I think that was his name) won't have to make too many edits 😬.

We celebrated when I was done with delicious Indian Food at Bombay House.

Kevin loves Chicken Tikka Masala and I love Vegetable Coconut Korma.

Loved the cool artwork.

Friday morning we arrived early to make sure my tech was set up and working.

We stopped at the bookstore.

There was my book, right next to Elder Anderson's.

A few of my fans came to support me...

Papa Dave and Mama Linda

Shelley, my bestest friend from college and Lacey who started out years ago as my hair dresser and is now one of my dearest friends, and favorite people to talk Jesus with.

Cathi, my childhood friend and my twin.

We have so much in common.

My awesome sisters and mama.

Mindy, Kimmy, Megan.

The speaker before me ran way late and despite all our planning, we had glitches getting my slides on the big screen. Making us even more late getting started, but once we finally got the slides working it was go time.

We had a full room for both my classes.

I taught them The Grief Cycle.

As long as you can stay within one of the parts of the grief cycle you can avoid getting stuck on your grief journey. The grief journey is challenging enough, but when you get stuck it really makes things harder.

We talked about the difference between mourning and grieving.

There's a reason why mourning is mentioned so often in scripture when someone dies.

It's the outward expression of grief and helps get the pain and sorrow out of your heart and head to make space for Jesus to come in and help.

I'm not a fan of staying put. I like to roam when I teach, but the set up wasn't conducive to roaming.

Dakota's mission president's wife was there!

She saw Dakota in one of my slides and realized I was his mom.

She lost her son to Covid.

A friend from high school and her daughter also attended one of my classes.

Her daughter lost a baby to similar circumstances as myself.

I talked to so many people and was impressed with their courage to attend. Some of their losses were so recent, within weeks of the conference. One woman flew in from Germany. She lost her 6 year old daughter four months ago.

One man I would guess to be in his 70's saw me at our hotel and shared how helpful my presentation was and how he'd lost his wife three years ago and it was still so hard.

Loss can be so heavy, and yet God put us on this earth to have joy.

Sometimes we really have to look for it and work for it.

Lots of sad stories, but lots of hope too.

Everyone I spoke with was so glad they came.

My mom's bestie Janet from high school was there.

They hadn't seen each other in years.

Her husband Andrew Skinner was also a speaker.

I was able to go to several classes and I absolutely loved Neill Marriot share her story of loss.

Her daughter was in a car accident on her mission and passed away. Neill and her husband were serving as mission presidents in Sao Paulo Brazil at the time.

Such tragedy but in every story it was clear the Lord was in the details and he had a bigger plan.

They fed us well.

Delicious snacks and meals.

I went to a class taught by Jacob Hess, a therapist.

He talked about going from excruciating pain to lasting peace.

Many of these patterns I teach in my coaching.

They really make a difference.