When grief crashes over us, how do we stay afloat? Let's wade through the turbulent waters of grief and mourning with Katherine Barner, who offers a poignant voice in grief and trauma. Katherine's personal narrative of loss and professional expertise serves as a beacon for those adrift in the ocean of grief. In her words, she offers solace and understanding, reminding us that the journey through sorrow is as individual as fingerprints.
The purpose of this conversation is to embrace the heart, emphasizing the need for patience and self-compassion as we traverse our unique healing paths. The myths that shroud grief in unnecessary pain are unearthed, such as the idea that grief has a standard duration or that continuing sorrow implies indifference. Rather, we believe deeply loved people grieve profoundly. As we share memories, we illustrate how the presence of a friend often speaks louder than words.
Our heart-to-heart concludes with Katherine, aka Mrs. Kat Speaks, illuminating the often obscure path to hope and renewal. Katherine urges us to seek out the tiny yet potent glimmers of light that penetrate the darkness, no matter how painful the loss of a loved one, the rupture of a relationship, or any of life's other countless losses may be. In her online community, she invites listeners to continue the conversation. We invite you to celebrate Katherine's indomitable resilience and vulnerability. Don't forget to like, share, and leave a review.
With 4Freedom, all your communications, internet activity, and app usage are encrypted using multiple layers of robust, military-grade encryption algorithms that surpass the standards used by the NSA.
You can start your secure account today:
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When grief crashes over us, how do we stay afloat? Let's wade through the turbulent waters of grief and mourning with Katherine Barner, who offers a poignant voice in grief and trauma. Katherine's personal narrative of loss and professional expertise serves as a beacon for those adrift in the ocean of grief. In her words, she offers solace and understanding, reminding us that the journey through sorrow is as individual as fingerprints.
The purpose of this conversation is to embrace the heart, emphasizing the need for patience and self-compassion as we traverse our unique healing paths. The myths that shroud grief in unnecessary pain are unearthed, such as the idea that grief has a standard duration or that continuing sorrow implies indifference. Rather, we believe deeply loved people grieve profoundly. As we share memories, we illustrate how the presence of a friend often speaks louder than words.
Our heart-to-heart concludes with Katherine, aka Mrs. Kat Speaks, illuminating the often obscure path to hope and renewal. Katherine urges us to seek out the tiny yet potent glimmers of light that penetrate the darkness, no matter how painful the loss of a loved one, the rupture of a relationship, or any of life's other countless losses may be. In her online community, she invites listeners to continue the conversation. We invite you to celebrate Katherine's indomitable resilience and vulnerability. Don't forget to like, share, and leave a review.
With 4Freedom, all your communications, internet activity, and app usage are encrypted using multiple layers of robust, military-grade encryption algorithms that surpass the standards used by the NSA.
You can start your secure account today:
https://www.4freedommobile.com?ref=bridgebuilders
My guest today is Katherine Burner. Katherine is a grief and trauma expert, a licensed psychotherapist and founder of the Living Beyond Loss Academy. After 30 years in both public and private sectors of the mental health field, katherine is well acquainted with the ways grief can impact her life. By crafting this guide from her personal experience and lessons learned during her own season of mourning, katherine offers compassion and guidance to those suffering a loss in this timely work. She is a graduate of Spillman College and University of North Texas. Katherine holds degrees in psychology and counseling. In addition, she is certified as an ICISF crisis responder, clinical trauma specialist and a trained MDMEDR practitioner. You welcome Katherine to the podcast. Well, katherine, it's so good to have you on the podcast. How's your day going?
Speaker 2:My day is going wonderful. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited about having this conversation with you. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm glad I'm looking forward to having it as well. Your topic is one that so many people either have dealt with, especially in the last two years, or, if they haven't, they will deal with it at some point in their life. You can't avoid grief as long as you live here. Yes, it's true, the unfortunate reality, yes, Right, I want to get to know you a little bit better in my audience too. Give me the best piece of advice you've ever received.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I will be honest as I was thinking about this. I don't want to sound too super spiritual, but the reality is that's just kind of who I am. The best piece of advice that I was ever given was to be true to who I am and be true to who God has called me to be. I didn't understand that at the time because I was young and you hear stuff and you're like what is that? Having lived a few years, now I get it and it makes sense. I see it for the gift, honestly, that it really was.
Speaker 1:There is nothing wrong with being hyper spiritual and the advice you get. That is some of the best advice I've often got that is awesome. I'm curious in your life we always had those people that have meant so much to us. I'm curious if you want to give a shout out to some people in your life who have served to inspire you, be a mentor for you, help you through some difficult times. Is there somebody who comes to mind you want to kind of thank for that?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, there are two people. Neither of them are still with us, but I'll shout them out anyway. My mother would be the first one. She was my biggest cheerleader, my number one fan and my absolute everything. And then my uncle, who was her younger brother, her only brother. He is the person who led me to Christ, who taught me about Jesus, who taught me how to teach about Jesus, who just discipled me when I didn't really even know what that was. So those are the two people that have been the most instrumental in my life and in my journey, and I'm just so grateful that God decided to plant me in their lives for the time that I had them.
Speaker 1:That's amazing and it's so good to know often times, as people that question that's who they come up with. Somebody, either a mother or a father or a family member who knew them from the day they were born to the day they left this earth. And so, yeah, those are some of the most impactful people in our lives.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, I've got some others, but when I think about those two, they win. The prize hands down.
Speaker 1:Right, there you go. I looked at your book and did some research on you and it seems like your book came out of a personal journey, so you want to share your story as to what that journey was and the lessons you learned along the way.
Speaker 2:Sure, so the book is actually. Well, I was actually written and born out of my own grief journey, in particular, after the death of my mother. You know I've worked in the mental health space my entire career, for almost 30 years now. I've counseled countless people on grief and loss and trauma and all the things and did that well and I really enjoy that. But in 2011, when my mother passed away, I literally did not know what I was going to do. I didn't know how I was going to move forward. I didn't even I didn't know if I was going to move forward and, quite frankly, I didn't know if I wanted to move forward and just what my life was going to look like. And so I went through that that really difficult season after her death and I came to a place where I said to myself if I know all that I know as a mental health professional, I know, having worked with people, you know even my spiritual walk. If I know everything that I know about grief and loss and you know how you move through and all the things, and I'm struggling the way that I'm struggling, what in the world is everybody else doing? And that's really what prompted me to write the book Just as a way to give people something to hold onto in those beginning phases of grief where you're just trying to figure out what is going on and am I losing my mind? Am I okay? Am I not okay? What is this? So that's really what it was born from.
Speaker 2:I wanted it to be, you know, an easy read. I didn't want it to be a lot of psychological heady. You know stuff that people had to figure out what I was saying. I just wanted it to be very practical and kind of the starting point for people moving through their grief journey, something easy that they can start with. Like I said, not a long read, but something that would still be impactful for them. So that's really where the book came from, and I talk about this in the book. The other losses that I've experienced, that kind of led that, because when we think about grief we always think about death, but grief is about loss, and so, you know, I've experienced, you know, job loss. I've experienced, you know, divorce. I've gone through, you know, sexual abuse and trauma, and that has its own facet of loss attached to it. There are multiple parts of my story, but the book came primarily from my mom leaving here and going to rest with Jesus.
Speaker 1:It's funny you mention that because I'm a pastor and I have done hundreds of funerals and sat with families, helped them plan the funeral, conducted the service, never really understood the pain they went through until I lost my mother too and just like you described this, I tell my own story. I felt lost and I'm like I'm not supposed to feel lost. I'm a pastor, I know where she is, I know her face was there, but it just it hurt so bad and it was so painful. For months I was out of sorts. I mean, I lost my dad first and that was a different loss. That loss felt like I lost a sense of identity Cause like, even though we weren't all that close, it's like he was the dad and I wasn't even I was married. But it was like when he lost, it's like I'm the next generation and it was just this weird sense of now it's on me. But when my mom died, it was, it was like I tell people, it's like I almost felt like my faith was shaken and it made no sense.
Speaker 1:Why was shaking?
Speaker 2:I'm completely with you and it's interesting you say that cause my father passed away first as well and, similar to you, I described it as my father had a complicated relationship and so when he passed away, it hit me differently being a female it was it was all of a sudden my maiden name meant something, whereas before it was just like okay, whatever. But it was very interesting dynamic and very different dynamics. I completely identify with what you're saying. Yeah, when my mom left here, I was like now wait a minute, jesus. Yeah, but I mean, look at here, we need to talk.
Speaker 1:Right, and for me it was funny cause I remember when it hit me that God shook me, I guess you could say and reminded me that he still loved me. I was, I was driving down the road and the song, this Christian song, came on and I can't think of, I can't think of the name of that, but it was like it was a song when it talks about the waves of God's grace wash over me and it was like it was like I'm sitting down the road and I'm crying, going down the road in Chicago.
Speaker 1:No one understands why I'm in the car crying, but it was like God just reminded me that he never abandoned me due that loss and he was always there. But it was like it hit you at the weirdest time to bring you back, to get out, cause my mom died without me being there. She died alone and it died suddenly. And so I'm like, well, god, why did you let her die by herself? And it was in that moment he reminded me that she was never alone. Even in that last moments I was always there. To kind of it just eased a little bit, but it was like it was tough to get to that point where I just felt guilty that I didn't see it and missed it all together.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And again, it's so interesting that, even as you talk with people about their losses and how they experience it and that's one of the things I talk about in the book you know the way that someone passes away, your experience of their loss, how you find out were you there, were you not Like all of those things will color how you move through your grief process. You know For me, and similar to you, it hit me later on how gracious God even was to me in my mother's death. Well, I was just focused on the fact that she's not here, but my father died very suddenly. I mean, like you know, this morning he did, and like you know, five hours later he's not my mother.
Speaker 2:We went to walk through a seven and a half month journey with my mom before she passed away, and when I looked back on that, I was so grateful for that time that God gave me to slowly pull away. I talk to my mother every day, multiple times a day, just because the wind blew, you know, right, but during those seven and a half months I wasn't able to do that. We slowly, you know, had to pull away, and so that was God's way for me of preparing me to let go, because I always say to people had he decided to take my mom suddenly the way that he did my father, I don't know what that would have looked like, would I have gotten through it Absolutely, but I know that it would have been exponentially more difficult for me, and so it's so interesting to be able to see God's grace, even in our losses, and the way that he chooses to do whatever he wants to do with the people that he ultimately just put on loan to us.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly so. The name of your book is God Help Me. I'm Grieving, Finding Healing After Loss.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Tell us a little bit about how the book guides people through finding healing, because I think that is so critical. Like you said, the loss may not be the death of someone, but it could be a different kind of loss. But how do you help people find healing when those losses?
Speaker 2:are? Yeah, that's a great question. I think it starts with understanding some really fundamental things about loss that I talk about in the book. I talk about the 3Ps that grief is perfectly normal, that grief is personal and that grief is a process, kind of starting there, at what I call the beginning, because so often, whatever the loss is, so oftentimes because of the emotions that we experience, the reality is none of us want to hurt and none of us want to hurt very long.
Speaker 2:And that's the hard part about grief and loss it's the physical and emotional pain that we experience that just doesn't go away as quickly as we want.
Speaker 2:So when we start to help people understand that it's going to take some time, it's going to look different on you than it does on me. It's going to look different even within family systems individuals who experience the same or similar loss and that there's nothing wrong with you, that there's nothing innately wrong with you. You're grieving and that's OK. So helping people start there to just understand what's happening to them pushes them so much further along in their healing, because oftentimes the stunt to the healing, if you will, is I don't understand what's happening and so I'm doing all these other things to try and make it go away, when actually what needs to happen is I need to understand that what I'm experiencing is normal, so that I can now move through the process and make my way toward healing and understanding that it's going to take time, how much time? As long as it takes. So that's some of I think the beginning phase is so very important, just to give people a clear understanding of what in the world is happening to me right now.
Speaker 1:So how do you in that first phase because I think it's really critical, you said something really special there how do you give yourself grace during that first part, because you can really beat yourself up going? Why am I not over this? And it just makes it worse. The more you beat yourself up, the worse, it gets. So how do you tell people to give themselves the grace to be in that place, to sit in that place and to just be okay with the fact that it's going to hurt?
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and one of the ways I do that is helping them understand that and kind of going back to what I said there's nothing wrong with you, so it's not like you know you're somehow in a way. There's this disorder that you have. What your experience is a normal response to loss that everybody experiences and so understanding that. So that takes you off, doesn't go, oh, okay, well, there's nothing wrong with me, all right. Now, how do you experience loss? What does it look like for you? Do you need time to cry? Do you need time to go play basketball with your friends? You need to go play golf. Understanding that men and women and all of those differences, innate differences that we have. So understand that about yourself and then going okay, if I'm going to get better, I need to give myself the time to get better I talk about in the book.
Speaker 2:I use the example of my son.
Speaker 2:He broke his arm when he was maybe eight, nine years old, exactly just before my father passed away, broke his own roller skating, and he had to go from you know, the original splint, to a cast to search all the things to get to the process of healing, because it has to happen from the inside out.
Speaker 2:We want, we think that, because we look okay here, that we should be able to go on and move about our lives. But naturally, healing has to happen from the inside out, and so that takes time. So, recognizing that, slow down, give yourself the grace, the space, the time, and don't allow other people to put those predetermined time frames on you that say, oh well, it's been a month, you should be okay by now. Or it's been two months and you still crying every Tuesday because your mom died on Tuesday. So I cry every Tuesday. It's because that's your process, that's the way you need to move through the process. So giving yourself grace is huge in this and also teaching other people and that's why I'd love to do the training that I do. So it's not only you giving yourself grace, but it's helping other people understand we need to give the ones we love grace and space as well.
Speaker 1:I had another guest on. We were talking about grief too, and we were talking about she lost her son to drug addiction and he took his own life. And you know, one of the things she talked about is people, when they're around you and you're dealing with grief, they don't want to mention a person's name and that doesn't help, because you want to talk about that person. It's like you want that person's name mentioned because you don't want. It's like you're still alive as long as you're still being talked about. So how do you help people who come around grieving people to deal with some of the best practices when you're dealing with somebody who's dealing with grief?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I do that a lot, and the first thing that I try to teach people is, first of all, to recognize that you don't always have to say anything, that your primary job is to listen and be present, Because there's nothing that you can say that's going to make it better. Like there's nothing that you're going to say to someone, they're going to go. Oh, you know what. You are absolutely right. I am so glad that God put my mom on my dad. Like that's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:So a lot of it is just learning. Learning the ministry of presence is what I call it Just being present for people and allowing them to talk. And so they want to talk about their loved one, their husband, their father, their mother, daughter, child, whoever it was, mother, father, whoever it may be allowing them to do that, and your job is to respond in a way that simply lets them know I hear you and I am validating whatever feelings you have. You're not trying to explain them away. You don't even have to agree with them, but people need to be seen, people need to be heard when they're at space. I try to teach folks that in the beginning, don't say nothing, just oftentimes, because we tend to say a lot of things that are just not helpful at all. Exactly, yeah, oh, you're so young you can marry again. Like I literally just left the cemetery in your toe milk. Yeah, the things we do.
Speaker 1:I love this quote. I want you to kind of dig a little deeper for us you have. This grief demonstrates how a person's response to loss does not indicate a lack of faith, but testifies instead to their humanity and life, affirming choices to love and to be loved. Kind of unpack that for us a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so oftentimes, particularly in the Christian community, in our faith communities, when someone agrees, we tend to have this wrong view and say that well, somehow they don't have faith, particularly if it lasts longer than about two, three weeks. You know they must not be praying enough or they don't have enough faith or all of these things. That's tied to their relationship, their fellowship with God, but actually has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with they were connected and they weren't fellowship with another human being. Their heart was connected to another human being in some way and some way, shape or form.
Speaker 2:And I say this is true, whether it was a good relationship, whether it's a divorce and it was a particularly difficult divorce, and maybe it was a relationship that you can look back and go. You know what? I shouldn't have even got married to begin with, but you're still connected heart to heart with another human being, and that is an indication that you made a choice. You made a decision to love someone and to allow yourself to be loved. And when we think about you know just what scripture says, like that, that's the whole. We think about what, what Jesus says to us in Matthew at the beginning, middle and end of scripture love God, love other people. And so you've done that. And now, when this loss happened, there's a period of time that it's going to take to heal from that, and so, in a very weird way, what we experienced with grief and loss is actually the beauty of knowing that you were intimately connected to another human being, and that's a gift. That's really a gift.
Speaker 1:I like that and you and I talked about it. You know you could be a very, very strong Christian, but sometimes the loss devastates you and it's not a lack of faith, it is just. It goes back to what Paul talks about. It's like sometimes you go through trials and tribulations in your life so that your faith is proven to be genuine. Your faith comes out stronger sometimes when you've gone through those difficult, painful moments in your life.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know, when I teach this, a lot of times I walk through Job because I think it's just that whole book is just a beautiful chapter of this, because you know, we start out in chapter one. You know Job is a man and Job got everything and all the things. In the chapter one he literally loses everything. But we like to land on the very end of chapter one where he says naked I came to the world and naked I'll be blessed, be the name of the Lord. And we, we pop that up as this. You know, really beautiful, super spiritual space that we should all be in as soon as we lose someone. Now, granted, that's what we want to end.
Speaker 2:But we forget to point people to the rest of the book. Because between chapter three and about chapter 38, job is, he's in a bad spot. I mean, he is God. Why did you let me be born if this will go happen? Because not only he's lost his possessions, he's lost his children. I mean he goes through every, almost every point of loss his children, his possessions. You know he's, his health is in jeopardy. You know, some would argue his relationship even with you know, I like to call her Miss Job because, oh, by the way, she's grieving too when she makes that comment to him about you should curse God and die.
Speaker 2:So everything that she, that Job, lost in chapter one, she lost too, those were her children do so. So I like to walk people through that whole, that whole book, because it it it kind of gives people what I like to call a faith defense to go okay, I don't have to be, you know, I can still have my faith and be very honest with God about how I'm feeling. I can still have my faith and love God and still say but God, this hurts and this hurts bad and God, I don't know why you did it like this and I wish you would have done it like this. But then we get to the end of the book, we get to chapter 42. God has restored that he's, he's met with Joe, he's talked to Joe, joe's faith is now again increased and then Joe has 10 more children and all of his possessions are there and always tell people I point back to Miss Job. Clearly she got herself together, because nowhere in scripture does it say he got a new wife. So he had to have a 10 babies from it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So so it's just a beautiful walkthrough of helping people see and understand the process of grief and that it's okay. And then it doesn't negate your faith. It doesn't mean that you don't love God. It doesn't mean that you're not still connected to him. It means that it might be a little weak, but but that's okay and that's normal. And most important thing is that God's not upset with you about that, nor is he afraid of you, because you can say you know you mad at him, so he's okay with it.
Speaker 1:And I love the fact that that Joe gets to the point where he gets an audience with God. He stands in front of God and and he tries to put God on trial. And the original language is really funny because when God responds back, the the Hebrew says God tells Job to pull up his pants. And it's and it's literally the translation is you know, pull up your pants like a man. You asked for this. Here it comes. So it's like, and God just lays his head in a, in a, in a really powerful way of like were you there when I formed the foundations of the earth? So while you're questioning why I made like you said why I did what I did, know that I never lost control of this planet or society and I don't really need your advice as a how to do things.
Speaker 2:Right, because because you know we look at, at the I like to call the morpher of it, and again not the losses is great and it's, but when we look at it connected to the rest of our lives, we look back on our lives. You know it's a guy's point, like dude, what?
Speaker 1:where were?
Speaker 2:you when I was playing in stars and so and and the beauty of that to your point were able to see that God can still hold us in this space. Well, at the same time, the world never stopped turning. So, even though I'm in this really dark and difficult spot, I'm still breathing, I'm still waking up every day. That's only because God allows it. The alarm clock really didn't wake me up. I say this often when I'm teaching, like do we hear the alarm clock and wake up, or do we wake up and then hear the alarm clock? Like how does that work?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I don't know. That's a God thing. So, even even in my hurt and pain, god is still taking care of me. I'm like you. That's that's why I love. When we get to 38, guys like, okay, look, enough is enough. Let me right. Let me tell you who I really am and what I've been doing. So clearly, you, you forgot that's right.
Speaker 1:And I love, like in the song, when the psalmist does that too and he's like you know God, where are you? And and then he turns around in the precatory song and he goes. But God is my refuge in my strength and and one of the most beautiful things job says is I know that my redeemer lives.
Speaker 2:I know that, yet in my flesh I will see God, you know.
Speaker 1:So it's like even after all, like Job knows that I know my redeemer lives. I know that you were guys, so you know we need to go through that and and and sometimes Talk to God about those things that God can handle it he's. He's a big boy, so it's okay.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think it's so importantly. We need to let other people go through that, recognizing that they're gonna get where they need to be, that they're gonna land right where they need to be, and so it's okay that they they have those questions and they move through, because they're gonna they're gonna find their way right back.
Speaker 1:And I think sometimes you may something, me think of something. When we stop people from doing that because we're, we don't like the way they grieve, we're like you should, you should be over. This is like no, don't, don't cut off their process, don't cut off their need to connect with God, even maybe yell at God, because if you cut that off you stop them in that healing process. So let them go, walk with them, but don't, don't jump over, don't jump in the middle of it and stop and, you know, kind of derail their healing process.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I completely agree, and I think one of the reasons that we tend to do that is because the reality is none of us like to see other people hurt, particular the people that we love and care about, and so For us, it's the difficulty I say of we can't. We can't stop it, we can't make it go away, so we just want them. Can you stop crying, please, because I can't handle your tears. You know I can't handle you hurting, so I need you to stop. But I think that's a lot of times where they come from. But you're absolutely right. We we have to give them that space to do that and to allow God to do his work in them and through them, in the midst of that really, really Difficult situation, whatever it may be, whether the death of someone, a loss of a job, a divorce, health challenges, whatever that may look like.
Speaker 1:And I think you also reminded us that All of our loss is not the loss of a person. When I work with Christians in their church and there's changes in their congregation, sometimes there's loss, there's pain, and If you're, if you're wise, you'll see that some of the same behaviors that you're experiencing, that they're experiencing, are from that loss. So you walk people through that loss, whether it's you've changed the worship time, the favorite organist quit, their favorite pastor's left. There's grief in those different moments.
Speaker 2:Grief in those moments. Yeah, and that's, and those are all the things. That's why I try to drive home so often that grief is not just about death, it's, it's about loss, and and Multiple things can lead us into a season of grief after we've experienced a significant loss.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I'd like to ask my guest this question what are you most excited about in this season of your life? Oh, Wow.
Speaker 2:You know, that's a great question, because I am. I'm in a really really cool spot with God right now. I am in a really Really good season, and so I think the thing I'm most excited about is, first of all, being able to recognize that and the way that he is moving me, the way that he's choosing to use me, the work that he's allowing me to do. There's nothing better. I mean this, this, this spot that I'm in right now. I'm like God, we yeah, I can hang out here for a minute and Then we can just keep doing. You know doing this thing the way you want to do it. You know other challenges, obviously, around me, and you know all the things. There's always something going on, but, but personally, god has me in a place that I have to be honest, I this is the best place that I've been in. If we use the term season, this is truly the best season of my life and I am I am beyond grateful.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. My other favorite question asked my guest is this one what do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker 2:Wow, you know I'm gonna go with that. I love God and I love this people because I believe that, ultimately, that's what we're supposed to be doing. All the other stuff is great and he wants us to do that, but I think when we strip it all down, love him and love his people, and they can be hard to love it.
Speaker 1:Yes, they can be difficult to love, but so can we.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, so can we. So I think for me, yeah, it's love God and love his people. And then I've got a three-year-old granddaughter, and so for me it's living in a way that she gets to see what it really looks like to live a life truly live a life for God and to serve him and his people and to love Jesus. If you'd asked me that 10 years ago, I probably had a bit of a different answer, but yeah.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's it. I want her to see and I want her to know him. And I wanted it. Yeah, wanted to be up close and personal.
Speaker 1:So if you had a message for somebody right now is dealing with grief, what words would you have to encourage them right now?
Speaker 2:in this time in their life.
Speaker 2:You know, I'd say to them that God is still faithful to you in the darkness and I know how exceedingly dark grief can be but I challenge them to look around for points of light, not huge beams, not a thousand watt bowl, but just the points of light that show that he's still there even in this dark season. And hold on to those until they begin to illuminate further, because he'll do that. He, god is, he's faithful, his word says it. And if we're able to look a little bit beyond where we are and even look a little bit further back from where we've been, we can see that and he is going to, he is faithful, he will always be faithful to you, even when it's really, really dark. There's a point of light in there, and hold on to it because it's going to illuminate it, and I am, you know, I'm evident to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it may just be pinpricks in the canvas, but at some point those pinpricks may become the dawn.
Speaker 2:That's it, the dawn. The morning really is coming.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It really is, and there truly is some joy attached to it. It's coming, so just keep holding on to those, those pinpricks and those points of light.
Speaker 1:Right. So what can listeners find your book? God help me. I'm grieving, finding healing after loss.
Speaker 2:Yes, they can find. I love to say they can find anywhere. Fine books are sold.
Speaker 1:So on.
Speaker 2:Amazon, barnes and Noble Books of Million. If you have a favorite bookstore in the town wherever you live, you can find it there. They may have to order, but they can certainly do that. You can also find it on my website at Katherine Barnard dot org. It's available there also.
Speaker 1:What can they follow you on social media?
Speaker 2:I am on social media everywhere, at Mrs Kat Speaks, so, mrskat Speaks, you can find me on all social media. I primarily hang out on Instagram and Facebook, but you can find me on the other same handle, at Ms Kat Speaks.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much, Katherine, for writing this book, for sharing your story, for appointing us to the light in the midst of our darkness and our losses, no matter what those losses may be, whether they are the loss of a loved one or just a loss of a job or employment or family friends, there is always a process of healing if we allow ourselves to go through that and point our eyes toward God, who guides us through that, through those dark times. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, keith. I sincerely appreciate it. This has been good. I love doing this, and so I thank you so much for giving me the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Thank you for being on the podcast.