Five Keys for Grieving People: An Unofficial Guide to Your New Normal

By Jean Birckhead

This book is a compilation of insights gained from personal experience. They will help anyone who is suffering from the recent loss of a loved one, particularly a spouse. There are valuable insights into the changes that are about to overtake ones life. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, and everyones journey is unique. Grief is about younot about the loved ones who died. This book will give the reader insight into their emotions, provide a way to relate to others on a new level, and offer strategies to move into a new season of life. The authors wish is that these keys will prove to be as successful for the reader as they were for her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512776539

Jean Birckhead

After the recent death of her husband, the author gained a personal and unique perspective on the grief process. Using her specialized training in grief, loss, and trauma she provides insight with five primary keys that will help others move through the tsunamis of life into the new normal that awaits them. Lessons learned through this and other traumatic life events have been the catalyst for a ministry that includes working one on one as well as with groups of bereaved people. Her conviction that there is purpose after loss and your best days are still ahead of you has resonated with many who have benefited from her help. Birckhead is a life coach and owner of Hope for All Seasons Life Coaching (www.hopeforallseasons.org). She earned a Master’s Degree from Liberty University, has been a business woman for many years, and finds joy in new undertakings in her senior years. She is the author of Five Steps to Sweet Sleep, A Bedtime Book for Sleepless Adults, published in 2016 by Westbow Press and available on Amazon.com.

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Copyright © 2017 Jean Birckhead.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-7652-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-7653-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017902837

WestBow Press rev. date: 03/13/17

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Five Keys for Grieving People

Key #1 – Your Life Will Never be the Same

Key #2 – There is no Right or Wrong Way to Grieve

Key# 3 There is a Time for Everything

Key# 4 Prepare to Change – Lean In!

Key #5 Live the Legacy

Things you need to know about this book: (1) it is not a presumption upon your unique grieving process, (2) it is not a book about what you ought to do, and (3) it is not a quick fix. It is an honest account of my own ongoing grief process and what I’ve learned.

I pray that you will open your heart to the One who can not only dry your tears and comfort your grieving heart, but as the Wonderful Counselor can give you a different perspective on everything. He will walk with you through this season of your life and introduce you to a new purpose for the rest of your life.

IF YOU DON’T GET ANYTHING ELSE FROM

THIS BOOK, GET THIS:

GRIEF IS ABOUT YOU!

Acknowledgements

Profound thanks to the God of all comfort, who lovingly led me through the valley of the shadow of death into a new normal and a new season of purpose.

Thanks to Hugh Mann, Julie Shepherd, and Linda Jenkins who were the first to demonstrate II Corinthians 1:3-5 to me through the GriefShare support group at Friendly Avenue Baptist Church in Greensboro, NC. Thanks to the late Pastor Pat Cronin, Dr. Doris Henderson, and FABC, whose missional vision includes demonstrating their faith by reaching out to hurting people throughout the community. Thank you to the GriefShare co-leaders including Hugh Mann and Sherree Robinson who have been a constant source of inspiration.

Thanks to Hugh, Doris, Sherree, and others who recognized God was combining my spiritual gifts, training and personal grief into ministry and encouraged me to embrace it. Thanks to prayer partners, Belva Setzer, Nancy Bell, and Donna Van Eerden who have been steadfast for me in prayer for many years. They truly believe with God all things are possible.

Introduction

I’m sure you noticed by now that when your loved one died, no one came to you with a little package that contained a box of tissues and a manual entitled How to Grieve. I could have used such a guide and I imagine you would have liked one, too. But chances are I would have thrown it on the pile of sympathy cards and letters, paying no attention to it whatever because I was in no more condition to read a book on grief than I was to fly to the moon!

This little book is a collection of things I’ve observed and learned in the three years since my own sweet husband left this physical world. My intention in sharing them is to bring hope and faith to your grieving process. It is a process and it is necessary. It doesn’t happen in a microwave minute (which would be my preference). It has its ups and