A Journey Called Grief: A Month-by-Month Reference For Those Who Grieve

By Sarah Schieber

With the release of her new book, "A Journey Called Grief: A Month-by-Month Reference for those who Grieve," Sarah Schieber hopes her personal story will become a resource she never had when she became a widow and single mother of three children, ages 11, 9, and 6.
Sarah's husband, police officer Chad Schieber, died while running the Chicago Marathon in 2007. He was only 35 years old with no known health issues. The book offers raw journal entries during the months and years that followed, including Sarah's struggle with her faith.
"I was still weeping eight months after Chad died and I often thought I was losing my mind," says Schieber. "I wanted to know if I was normal, but I couldn't find someone else's journey to validate my own. I eventually realized that my journals were a treasure for other hurting people and that I had written the exact thing I had sought after during my time of need. I was a strong woman of God the day Chad died, yet I struggled so very much in my faith in the days after his passing. This book accounts the real, raw, totally transparent version of what wrestling with God looks like."
Schieber is also very honest about her abusive second marriage a couple of years after Chad's death which sent her into another season of questioning God.
"I married a man about two years after Chad passed away and came home from our honeymoon with bruises on my body," says Schieber. "Fourteen months later he broke one of my fingers and I had him arrested. That entire journey is also in the book with a warning to widows. Be careful. I went on to be alone for a good long time after that divorce. About five years later, when I wasn't looking for it and really didn't want it, a wonderful man came into my life. Bryan and I are about to celebrate our seventh anniversary. So, for any widow wondering, love is out there. Heal your heart first, then let it come to you. Don't chase after it. Fall totally and completely in love with Jesus in the meantime. That is the best medicine for a lonely heart. And please remember – NO man completes you and NO MAN gets to tell you who you are or who you are not. Your identity is found in Christ."
Schieber says she hopes "A Journey Called Grief" will help not just people who are grieving, but those around them who are trying to be supportive.
"I had verse-toting believers lining up at my door trying to tell me to put a happy verse on my pain and get over it," says Schieber. "Grief is a process. A long one. I talk a lot in the book about the fact that we need to get better, as a body of believers, at climbing down into other people's pain and sitting in it with them. Stop trying to pull people out of their pain—instead walk through it with them. That is what God does. He walked WITH me through my pain."
Schieber says all her wrestling with her faith taught her some valuable lessons about God's faithfulness.
"God's faithfulness has nothing to do with us or the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with Him," says Schieber. "The word 'faithfulness' literally translated from the Hebrew means 'steadiness.' Somehow, we have made God's faithfulness about us…'the biopsy came back negative, God is faithful.' No, that's not how it works. My husband dropped dead, God is faithful. When we can make statements like that is when, I believe, we truly know the heart of God."

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667820514

Book preview

Preface

There I sat, in the back of a police car.

I had just ID’d my beloved husband’s body, in a cold and sterile room in a hospital near downtown Chicago. He had dropped dead in mile 18 of the Chicago Marathon… at the age of 35.

There I sat.

The realization was beginning to grip me that I had just become a 33-year-old widow and a single mama to three babies back home in Michigan.

My mind raced.

Widow. Wonder. Realization. Fear. Widow.

The beginning moments of this story are forever etched in my being…my DNA pierced with my new and constant companion - vulnerability. A new identity. A new role. A changed forever.

My happily-ever-after, over. Grief, begun.

I had heard about grief. I knew enough to know that there were stages.

As days turned to weeks and weeks to months, I became so disillusioned by the fact that no matter where I looked there were accounts of peoples’ loss, there were accounts of their lives before their grief and their lives after their grieving, and the hope that you will eventually get through your grief. I could go read about the stages of grief and the fact that there is no absolute and that the stages are fluid and so on and so on and so on.

But I could not find an actual account of what grief looked

like to validate my new normal… which was weeping. Constant weeping. And on the days I found the ability to do something other than weep I was eventually overpowered by the tsunami of grief that would come out of nowhere and take me down just like that!

What I wanted to know was that I was normal. I wanted to see someone else’s journey. I knew that no two journeys would look alike but I longed to peer into someone else’s grief so I could know that my grief was okay.

I wanted to know what it really looked like to journey through grief.

My friend, the book you hold in your hands today is my intimate journey through grief. This is my journal from the year after I lost my husband Chad, and beyond. These are my intimate pleadings with God. My questions, my fears, my very raw emotions, and my constant coming back to Him.

Without knowing it, I was writing this book as I traversed the most horrible yet sacred days of my life. Sacred? Yes, sacred. For there was not one step of this terrible journey… a journey that I did not ask for, did not deserve, and certainly did not want… that I was not held tightly in the Father’s arms.

I truly believe that you cannot journey through grief without questioning everything you know to be true about your faith. I couldn’t.

Along the way of this journey I will be very candid with you that it is alright to be angry with God. I thought I could skip that ‘stage’ because of my faith in Christ. I could not. I will be very honest with you about the struggle of my faith that I call my ‘wrestle.’ I will also continually tell you that you must, you absolutely must come back to resigning yourself to the arms of Christ at the end of each and every moment of the wrestle. You cannot allow yourself to stay in the wrestle. You will see, journal entry after journal entry, that it comes down to simply saying, I trust You. Even if you don’t know how or what that looks like anymore. The mere whisper of it will muster the strength you need to rest in Him for one more day, one more moment, one more breath.

My friend, one truth about grief is that you will heal. At first I

didn’t want to hear that. I didn’t want a life without Chad. But in time. Ah, yes, time. In time, you will decide that you must walk into the new. I want to assure you today – if you are brand new to grief – please let me assure you that you will not forget your beloved. Stepping into the new will not mean that you forget. It simply means that you become whole again – with a piece of your heart forever woven around theirs.

Come along with me. I pray this book will validate where you are in your grief journey. I pray that it will help you know that you are normal and that you have not lost your mind.

Most of all, I hope this book reminds you to continually turn your eyes back to our sweet Lord. He is the only hope of strength and peace along this long and painful journey called grief.

1

The Story of Us

I feel that I must lay down some backstory, in order for you to understand the depth of my grief. Please allow me to tell you the story of us.

Some of you may have just received this book and are desperate to connect with someone who understands your journey. Please… feel free to jump ahead. You can come back to this. I want this book to be used as a manual, a heart to heart, wisdom spoken into your storm. If you are in month three of your grief, please feel free to skip ahead to month three. But please come back. Some powerful truths lie in the pages between here and there… some powerful moves of God.

I also want you to know that grief comes in many different shapes and sizes and many different forms. This book contains truth. Wisdom gained from a weary soldier trudging her way through. Truth from a wrestle, a surrender, a healing.

I spoke with a friend recently who was just served divorce papers. She wept as she told me she is walking through a death. Death of her marriage, her hopes, her dreams. She said she’s grieving but with no cards, no funeral, no one showing up with meals.

I once walked through infertility with one of my dearest friends. For ten years. The pain was so immense. They grieved their hopes, their dreams, their longings for a family. Today they have three beautiful children, but it was a long and painful journey.

I say all that to affirm you today. Perhaps you’ve been given this book because you are suffering. Not as a widow but as a living, breathing person trying to find their way. This book holds many truths and great encouragement for anyone facing pain… not just widows.

This book is written from my perspective – that of a widow. Change what ‘title’ you may – truth is truth and this book is for anyone hurting.

I met Chad when I was just 14. He was 17. We didn’t start dating for another three years, but we would occasionally reconnect and catch up during those young years. When we did begin dating we fell hard and fast and somehow, in some amazing way, we created an incredible love. It took many years and a tremendous amount of hard work, but we did it!

The day he passed away we were more in love than ever. When I say it took a lot of hard work… oh boy, do I mean that! Early on in our marriage we committed to keep Christ at the center of our individual lives and at the center of our marriage, our parenting, our home, etc. That, my friend, was the key to where we were the day he died.

The world we live in does not make it easy to focus on the Lord and to stay focused. We live in a busy, fast paced, self-satisfying world that makes it very easy to focus on desires and pleasures and not on Christ. We worked hard to continually refocus and in doing so we found a glue.

A glue? Yes! A strong and sticky glue that was not dependent upon our individual needs, selfishness, shortcomings, etc. Nope, God was God and kept us stuck close together through everything. The amazing thing about God is that you cannot love Him deeply and remain resolutely selfish. No, in loving God deeply you become less and less selfish and in a marriage that is the key. In loving God more we found a way to love one another more… deeply and selflessly.

And so, on the day he passed away I lost a part of me that was woven around everything I had been, had become, and was becoming. I often tell people that on that day all the hopes and dreams of a young woman’s heart died along with him.

My hopes, my dreams, my passions were all wrapped up in who we were. I fell in love with Chad when I was 17. I was a baby. We grew up together. I didn’t know who I was without him.

And so my loss was profound.

Chad wrote me letters almost every day. He left for work very early in the morning and many mornings he would leave me a note or letter out by the coffee pot. He started them with Good Morning My Love. Most days he abbreviated that to GMML. These letters became known as our GMML letters and you will see that referenced throughout this book.

This is a letter my beloved wrote to me on our 11th wedding anniversary, just one year before his death:

July 15th, 2006

Good Morning My Love,

Eleven years ago I married a woman that even after three years of dating I hardly knew. I thought there were so many complexities to the female mind that I would never truly know who you were. We were facing so many challenges right from the start; I never thought life would ever be stable or normal. My only hope for us was that we would stay together and have a good life.

I loved you so much, but didn’t know what to expect for our future. I never really knew what a happy couple could be like (not that you did either) but I worried that life would turn into just existing with someone with pitched periods of fighting and perhaps the crescendo of throwing things across a room. I know this may come as a surprise, but I never expected a whole life full of joy. I guess in my mind there was a desire for more, but not that expectation.

Over the past 11 years we have grown so much (Praise God!!!) Though I know I don’t get you 100%, I can honestly say, I know you. I don’t know everything, but I think if I were to take a test on the real you I would get at least an A-. I’m going for the A+ and then the extra credit.

As I look back over the past 11 years there is so much that I did expect; kids, a house, a church, friends, a job. But there is so much more that I never expected. Great kids, a beautiful home, a blessed church, great friends and the security of a job that I enjoy with a greater prospect of doing something I love, ministering at your side.

The desire I had at the start of our marriage is what I think has helped me grow into who I am today. I knew my parents were all messed up and I certainly knew I didn’t want to walk the path your folks had set out on. I wanted more. I wanted to be able to come home at night and look forward to seeing your face. I wanted to spend time getting to know you and be your friend. I wanted to be a great dad to our kids. I wanted to be a friend of God.

What I didn’t know was that you had the same desires, hopes, and dreams that I did. I see how hard you have worked to grow and pray and seek God for us. I see what an incredible Mom you are to our kids. I see everything you do for our home and family. And when I see all God has gifted you with, I stand in awe and wonder. God gave me the perfect gift. He didn’t give me someone just like me, but he gave me someone with the same heart.

So when I look back over the past 11 years and see all that we overcame at the beginning of our marriage and then the struggles later on, I believe it is that heart, that desire for more, for better, for God’s will, that has made what we have so great. I love to hear stories get back to us about people we have counseled who have said that we helped them. I love when people tell us that they see something special in the way we interact. I know what we have is from that desire and His willingness to give to all that love Him.

So thank you, for having a heart after God. Thank you for holding me accountable when I need it and being teachable when you do. Thank you for loving me and sharing a common heart. You are everything I have ever desired in a wife and more. Every moment with you is a blessing and every day with you a privilege. I love you with everything that is in me and look forward to stretching even beyond that. Happy Anniversary!

Now, Always and Forever Yours,

Chad

2

Of To Run A Marathon

The warnings began streaming in on Tuesday before the marathon.

The race officials began warning runners that it was supposed to be unseasonably warm on Sunday and to take precautions in preparation. I remember sitting at the laptop in our dining room and reading the first e-mail to Chad. Really, though, what was the big deal? Most of our training had been done during the hottest months of the year.

In fact, because of Chad’s schedule, most of his training had not only been done during the hottest months… but at the warmest time of day. He had been working the 2:30 shift all summer – 2:30 in the afternoon until 2:30 in the morning. He would come home and sleep from about 3:00 a.m. until 10 or 11, then get up, eat a bit and head out for a training run. He was logging the majority of his miles between 11:30 and 1:30 all summer long.

Personally, I loved running in the heat… so, we took notice of the warnings, but were not too concerned. We packed extra sunscreen and made sure that we had our warm weather running clothes. We also began drinking extra fluids and really studied the route to know when and where the water and Gatorade would be available. We were so prepared!

When I ran the Detroit Marathon the year before, I literally had just made it through… but this one we studied and knew the course and had a firm grasp of what was going on – truly the ben-eft of having already done and been a part of one marathon. We were ready! Our anticipation was palpable! We were so excited to not only be a part of one of the greatest marathons around, but also to have a weekend away. We hadn’t had a weekend away, just the two of us, in quite a while and we were so excited!

The warnings were now coming daily and we continued to prepare to depart. We had planned to leave Thursday after the kids got home from school and drive to my brother’s house which is two hours away.