Grieving in Color Episode #13:

Season 2 EP 13 Spirituality and Grief with Dr. Chinasa Elue

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Welcome to Grieving in Color, a podcast that explores the various ways we navigate our experiences with grief and loss in a place where we find courage to intentionally heal in our daily lives. I'm your host, Dr. Chinasa Elue, a professor, speaker, and grief coach. And I'm inviting you to join me on this journey, embracing our grief and the full spectrum of our emotions, a palette of feelings that colors our lives even in the face of loss. In each episode, we dive into real stories of healing and growth, as we also feature guests who have found strength in sorrow, love and loss, and joy even in their darkest times. Grieving in Color is about acknowledging the pain, the loss, and the grief, but it is also about finding hope, love, and joy again. Whether you are currently on your grief journey or supporting someone who is, This is a space for you. We are here to remind you that you are not alone and it's okay to grieve in your own color. 

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Welcome to another episode of the Grieving and Colour podcast, the space where we explore the various ways of our grief and loss and find ways to heal in our daily lives. I am your host, Dr. Chi, and today we're going to dive into a topic that I have been wanting to talk about for some time and that surrounds spirituality and grief. 

As we get into this topic today, I want to share more from my perspective as a Christian and how I have been able to utilize my faith in helping me navigate my grief journey. Whether you're a Christian or not, I think whatever your faith practices may be, you may find something today that may be helpful for you as you are walking through your own personal grief journey and can be useful for you thinking about your next steps.

As we jump in, as always, I love to situate the conversation a little bit in my personal testimonies, particularly around this topic today. I'll mention here that I would not have been able to navigate my grief journey without my faith in Christ. I will say that that has been a huge part of how I have been able to heal over time and be able to step into the space where I'm able to have more grief-conscious conversations in a variety of different areas.And so I want to happen today by just kicking off the episode with my own story.

In May 2018, we were at my mother's house for Mother's Day, and I'll never forget my mom and my mother-in-law were there. We were sharing with them the surprise that we were expecting our second child, my daughter Amarachi, and they were over-the-moon excited. They love being grandmas and they were just excited to have another addition to the family. What's interesting is that a few short weeks later, my son was celebrating his birthday and right after that birthday party, my mom started complaining of some abdominal pain. And so we took her to the doctor and while we were there, they ran some scans on her and found a mass in her stomach. I'll never forget, a few short weeks later, they biopsied the mass and later diagnosed her with stage four cancer.

If you know anything about walking through a cancer diagnosis with a loved one or a debilitating illness with a loved one, you'll hear that, honestly speaking, it really upends your world. It flipped everything upside its head. When they said, automatically, stage four and I'm now pregnant with our second child, I was asking myself, how on earth am I even going to last in this pregnancy? I honestly was just beside myself. I remember immediately going into anticipatory grief and imagining her not being here with us a month later or six months from now, which is what the prognosis from the doctors came down to. I was trying to make sense of a situation that was beyond my mental realm of control. It just– I was not processing the information properly.

But one thing I remember very vividly in that moment is that I was so distraught hearing the diagnosis [and] I recognized that I was excited to be carrying life and I wanted to see my daughter come to pass. And so I knew that I had to tap into my faith in this regard. So I remember one day going into prayer and I was reading the book of Hebrews chapter four, and it was talking about entering into God's place of rest. And I really tangibly remember hearing the Holy Spirit say, “Chi, will you enter into my place of rest in the season?” And I chose to honestly submit my emotions, the whole experience of walking through this diagnosis with my mom to the Lord. And when I made that decision to just trust God in spite of not knowing what was going to be the outcome, I had a very enjoyable pregnancy. I had a chance to really think about, even in that moment of walking with my mom through cancer, how I could intentionally build time with her. Although the doctors gave her six months to live and I was weary that she would not get to meet my daughter, God was faithful and allowed my mom to live 11 months where she had a chance to meet my daughter, take the pictures, hold her, sing to her, speak sweet affirmations over her and then she passed away when she was around three months.

And initially, when I lost my mom, I was numb. I had so many questions for God. And I think this is the piece where I think spirituality and these conversations have to come into play because we were trusting God for a miracle. We believed that God's hand was not too short to overturn this prognosis around. I remember very vividly even after my daughter was born and I was nursing her at the time and I was weeks postpartum, but we were actively supporting my mom through chemo. I actually went with her to one of her doctor's visits and we were trying to see if the chemo was working and if it was shrieking the mass. But I'll never forget in that doctor's visit that they told us that the cancer had spread. So although we were praying for a miracle, I knew that even in hearing those statements and that news that it was going counter to our prayers, it really required us to tap into a deeper level of faith. And so I remember going back in the car with my mom, and we were quiet for a minute, but I put on one of our favorite worship songs by Israel Houghton– the song is Champion – and I'll never forget holding my mom's hand. I said, “Mommy, it doesn't matter. We're going to trust God.” And we began to pray and worship and sing. Our God is an awesome God. You know, there's none like Him. And we began to just pray in that moment that in spite of what we were hearing or seeing in that moment, that again, that was not the final say. And so we believed that a miracle was possible at every point of our journey walking through this piece with her. 

I think we needed to have that level of faith to not give up after hearing all of the negative news that was following us along the way. I even remember the night before she passed away. We were in the ICU unit with my mom, and we were just trusting that a miracle could still happen. And when she did pass away the following morning, it was such a surreal moment because we had been with her throughout that entire journey, and to see everything kind of come to an end in that capacity– I think for me personally, as a believer, I just remember having to just sit with the reality that, man, Mommy's actually gone. Wow. In that moment, I just had so many questions. I had so many questions for God. I remember walking out of the hospital and asking myself, like, “is this real life? Like, is this really happening now?” And wondering, how on earth was I going to be able to move forward. I was so numb. Just absolutely beside myself.

I remember in the weeks after she passed, we planned a beautiful service for her. We had a homegoing service for her. And in our culture (I’m Nigerian-American), we had to give some time to allow family members to fly in town for her services. And so we had a homegoing celebration for her on a Friday, and it was absolutely beautiful. I remember being in the church that she attended, and again, in this space where spirituality is such a big piece of my journey just as a person, but even in this moment where I was confronted with deep, deep pain and the grief of it all, being there and just thinking about all of the beautiful moments that were there. We sang her favorite worship songs at that homegoing service. The choir was absolutely divine. They were very gracious and just honoring her memory through song. And I remember all of the beautiful reflections and testimonies, and even the minister of that night really gave us the word to encourage us. And I think these were so many beautiful aspects of our faith that were very present in her services. 

And even the following morning when we actually had her funeral service at the same church, I remember being there and feeling like I was literally surrounded by angels. It was just a very surreal moment. I was very much so in pain, but I also had peace. I had peace in a way that I really cannot fully articulate, even on this podcast today, in the sense that I knew in my heart of hearts that my mom was going to heaven. You could not take that knowledge from me. I knew that she would be there beside The Father. I think the peace that I was having to contend with in that moment was, “Man, Mommy is gone and she's in such a better place. No more pain, no more suffering. But how do we, who are left behind here, figure this thing out without her?”

And I think that's where my journey began with thinking about how do I, as a believer, move forward in my faith. How do I as a believer, move forward and trust that God will see us through? How do I know that it's going to be okay? Because in that moment, although I was relishing the fact that she was in a better place, I was thinking that, man, I'm not, I'm not. I'm struggling really, really bad. And I don't know if I'm going to pull through. I don't know if I'm going to be okay. I don't know what this is going to look like as we move forward. I had to really think about the next steps and I didn't have a plan. There was no blueprint for this. This was the first person I had ever lost in this capacity.

I found myself in the months after in a space spiritually where I was struggling. And if I can be frank today, I couldn't pray. I didn't want to read my Bible. I didn't want to worship. I didn't go back to church for months. I didn't denounce Christ, but I was just in so much pain that for the first couple of months I was just really mute and I was really numb. I got really, really quiet. I knew that church was the place where I had a lot of community and a lot of people who loved and supported me and my family. And so I really wanted to sit with all of the emotions, all the questions that I had. 

And so as I'm talking about the aspects of spirituality and how that came into place here, one thing that I recognized over time was that I did not have the answers in myself. My lived experiences up until that point did not give me a blueprint, a strategy, a playbook on how to work through grief. I didn't have the bandwidth or the range in my life-experiences to fully even help myself through, and I knew that it was going to take a supernatural force to help me. I knew that it was going to have to be beyond the comfort of my therapist or my husband or my family or my friends who were doing their best to show up and support me but were still coming up short because there was a deeper void that no one could fulfill for me. And in that moment, I knew that I had to really lean on the power and the grace of God to help see me through. 

And that's what I began to do slowly when I recognized that “Chi, all of these things you're putting into place are failing you and you have to go in deeper.” 

And so, where my spiritual practices picked up in this sense was that although I was not able to physically find myself praying or praying for long spurts of time, I began to play worship music. I think that was the greatest equalizer for me, was that I knew I could at least sing and I knew I could at least let the songs wash over me and be a supportive tool for me in that context. And so I would play worship music in the car. I would play it when I woke up, I would play it when the kids were around and I found myself weeping. I would cry. I would weep all the time. And I think one of the greatest distinctions that came from this whole process with me is recognizing that my mom, although she was physically no longer here, she was spirit and soul. Going into worship for me was like tapping into the spirit realm and knowing that Mommy was there already worshiping the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and that, that was a way that I was able to even connect, was that as I allowed myself the opportunity to worship the Lord through music, I began to gradually start healing. That was the healing I was after.

And the biggest thing here is that there are so many models and frameworks around how we process and think about grief. I think about the more common grief framework that we're familiar with, the Kübler-Ross model around the five stages of grief. And although I will walk through them in various stages because I don't believe grief is linear here, I do know that grief looks different for all of us and it can be a mess. Some days I was experiencing denial and anger that she was gone. At the same time, I didn't want to believe it. Some days I was bargaining with myself, like, “Are you really here? Is she not here? Does this really make sense now, in this moment?” There were periods of time, months of time, when I was utterly depressed, and didn't have the energy, the drive, the bandwidth to engage with people. Activities that once brought me joy, I just– I didn't have it to give. Where I finally started to move towards accepting the fact that she wasn't here was when I began to recognize that I needed to do something different here. 

And so my spiritual practices began to pick up in play. 

And so I want to transition a little bit to talk about, if you're in this standpoint and you are at a space where you have been trying a lot of different tools, strategies, therapy… Things of that capacity to support you, but you are recognizing that you need more, perhaps an important piece of your grief journey might be considering your spiritual walk, your spiritual practices and how they may be a supportive tool or resource for you. Not trying to necessarily make sense of the loss, but more so thinking about how you can intentionally begin to heal in that process and tap into a force that's greater than yourself.

And so I just offer these strategies as a realm for one who's looking to perhaps tease through this a little bit more and take the time to kind of go through the messiness of this. Because, when we talk about spirituality and grief, there are so many nuances to it and it can be a bit messy at times. But I think we're worth the messiness. We're worth it to sit down and dig in deeper and not remain surface. And for me, I don't want to be a surface level Christian. I know the word of God says that “in this world we will have many trials, but take heart. I have overcome the world” and I was in the midst of those many, many trials. And so I knew that there was a precious oil that was being produced from this loss. It's an oil that honestly, I think cannot fully be captured in a jar. It can't be put on a shelf. It was something that was generated from just the gravity of who my mom was to me. And just walking through this experience where although she wasn't here for me, there was a birthing of something new inside of me that was strengthened in me and edifying my walk in Christ. And so I found over time that as I began to impart more of my spiritual practices through prayer and finally getting back into a rhythm of reading my Bible more consistently, I began to heal more intentionally and in a more complete way. 

So one of the strategies I offer here is that I think as a believer, one thing that was important for me was to break away from stereotypes of what grief looks like for a believer. There's oftentimes the scripture that says, “We don't grieve as unbelievers do.” And I think a big piece of this is that people began to look at me condescendingly at times when I was crying six months out, a year out, especially around milestones where I was just taking a much longer, much more scenic route to cope with my grief. And I think about that in light of different things, like when my mom passed away in 2019 and we were clocking New Year's going into 2020 when the clock struck 12. I'll never forget being in church, and I literally felt like I left her behind in the previous year. I bawled! I wept from that New Year's Eve service all the way home, because to me it was just like, “Man, Mommy passed away last year and I have to use last year to kind of capture where she was in time.” And it was painful. It was painful to walk through that. 

And I think one piece that I had to recognize is that my grief journey was just going to look a lot different. I never had anyone demonstrate to me what it looks like to grieve. In fact, I think a piece of why I started this podcast was to talk about a topic that oftentimes we don't talk about. We don't take the time to tease out the very much so lived experiences that we walk through. Growing up, my parents lost their parents, but I didn't really see them take the time to grieve. I saw maybe that one day or so where the initial shock of the loss of their parents hit them, but I didn't see the crying or the processing. So again, I didn't have a blueprint. I didn't have that in my repertoire to pull from to help me cope. And so I knew that I wanted to do it in my own way. And my own way just required a slower pace and more time. And that's what I afforded myself. 

So I think breaking away from this concept of time, not letting people stereotype you is huge here, especially as you think about your spiritual practices and how perhaps if your faith tradition has a cap or end time on the appropriate time to grieve, if you need more time, take the time. I knew I had to reclaim my time all the way when it came to just pausing. All of it. And not feeling like I need to rush myself to get back to a normal that will never exist. And that's just the reality. It will never be the same again. 

So some of the strategies also in this context for me that I found helpful was to seek comfort through Scripture. I think for me personally, the Bible was filled with so many promises and again, in this place where I found myself walking through one of the darkest valleys I had ever been in, I found it comforting in a variety of different ways to really find scripture that was helpful in helping me cope In that sense. One of my favorite ones at the time was Psalm 34, verse 18. It says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” And I found that very, very comforting to know that I was close to the Lord in that moment, that I didn't have to look or feel a particular type of way. That my spirit was crushed, and I was sad and there was space for me to exist like that. And I think that's the big piece is that we can exist in our grief. We can exist in the crushed places that we find ourselves in when we lose our loved ones. 

And I leaned into that fully and allowed myself the opportunity to lament and mourn in the ways that I needed to. I didn't shy away from it. I just embrace it fully. And I think there's an opportunity there to recognize that when Lament appears in our grief journey, it's okay to express our frustration and our sorrow and our fear and still return to a place where we can trust in God. 

At the same time, I'll mention here that one thing that also encouraged me here, particularly from my vantage point as a Christian, was to lean on the hope of the resurrection. And the Word of God says in John Chapter 11 verses 25 to 26, it says, “I'm the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even though they die. And whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” So I remember very vividly at the funeral, recognizing that although Mommy was no longer physically here, that I could take comfort in the resurrection, knowing that her spirit was with the Lord. And I know that the Lord encourages believers not to grieve without any hope. And so I still had hope. Again, I mentioned that I didn't denounce Christ in my initial stages of my grief journey. I was just very, very sad. And so I think we can give ourselves the opportunity in the space to grieve, to know that we don't have to look a particular type of way. Even though we may find ourselves crying, even if we still know that we have that eternal hope, it's okay to cry. It's natural. We still can grieve. Give ourselves the space to grieve. It’s just we don't grieve without any hope. But we can still grieve. And so I think that piece needs to be teased out, especially again, around some of these notions when it comes to faith-based practices and spirituality. If people are used to people not expressing themselves through tears or just putting on a facade or a mask pretending like it's okay, it's okay to let people know, yo, I'm not okay. I'm not 100% I'm not my normal self. It's going to take me some time. It's okay to grieve. All right. 

I’ll mention here as we're thinking about ways to really leverage our spiritual practices, engage in community and fellowship. I am such a big proponent of this. When the word of God says in Galatians chapter 6 verse 2, “Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you fulfill the law of Christ.” I think a big piece of this is to remember that we can grieve in community. You have a community that is literally a tangible representation of God's love and care for us. I remember actively walking through my own grief journey and tapping into community. I did not do it alone. I thank God for my amazing village that has surrounded me from day one of my grief journey, and even up until now, these are people that I found myself being able to pray with, people who prayed over me, people who held me, held my kids, helped my siblings and I when we were crying. When we were beside ourselves, these were spaces and people who showed up for us in a variety of different ways. 

And I know that sometimes we want to feel like we don't want to burden people. That we don't want to take away from people's time. But I think I love from season one, I had a guest, Ekene Onu, who talks about the importance of relationships and putting weight on our relationships. And I think in this space where we can grieve in community, we can put some weight on our relationships in our community. Especially if you’ve sown and sown and given and given over time, there will be time and space where you need people. Not from a way where it's abusive, but in a time and a space where you know that in and of yourself, you're not capable of doing some of the things you used to do. That you may need a little bit of extra support. And I think it's okay to know that although people are busy, that they're willing to make time and space for you. 

And I think in this context, if you're walking with someone who is experiencing grief of their own, thinking about ways you can intentionally carve out time and maybe taking them out to dinner or checking in or going out to lunch or going to a game. I mean, I had people offer to take us– we went to games, we would do game nights at their house. They would bring over a movie and bring some snacks and hang out. And we didn't necessarily talk about my mom, but there's something about presence that speaks volumes, knowing that even if you come in silence, that you just sit with me. Your presence speaks volumes here. And I think one of the greatest gifts that God has ever given us is community. And I'm so grateful for the support that exists there. 

And I want to encourage those who may be in this space where they're apprehensive of tapping into their community while you're walking through grief. I just want to encourage you to remember that having community is a gift. And it's a gift often at times we can take for granted. And it's a gift oftentimes that we don't tap into enough. And so I think when we're walking through grief, it's important to remember that this is a sacred gift that we have to ourselves and we should tap in when needed. 

I'll mention here that… I'm going to mention this, but I have a caveat with it that you can find purpose in your pain. The caveat here is this I don't want to say, you have to experience the extreme pain of losing someone to find your purpose. I don't want to even fully connect that 100% because I think you can find your purpose in a variety of different ways without having to walk through the very extreme pain of losing a loved one. But I'll mention here that one thing that became very apparent to me was that there was a particular part of my life's journey that was beginning to unfold after I lost my mom. And it was a particular piece for me where I recognized that the things that I was formerly interested in no longer interested me. I remember particularly in my work as a professor, I was doing research around particular topics, around, you know, college choice and student loan debt, all really important topics.

But when I lost my mom, it was nine months before the pandemic, and when the pandemic hit, we had this collective grieving experience. I knew that I wanted to shift 1,000% in a different direction, and I began to study grief in Higher Ed specifically. And it's interesting when I say you finding purpose in your pain here, I found purpose in talking about grief. There was something inside of me that was ignited that made me want to engage in these conversations more deeply. I had a deeper level of self-awareness about myself that necessitated that I don't turn a blind eye to this experience, but I lean into the pain of it all. And it was in leaning into it that I discovered that, hey, there is a missed opportunity at times to really demonstrate what it means to walk through grief. As debilitating as it may be, what it means to really make sense of this, or create spaces where we can talk about it more intentionally. 

I remember going to prayer about pivoting a lot of different things in myself professionally and personally to accommodate this newfound purpose for myself. And I remember particularly here, Romans Chapter five, verses 3 to 5, it says “not only soul, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character, hope.” And I found that over the past couple of years, my perseverance and choosing to intentionally heal and to heal fully in Christ has given me the opportunity to really capitalize on the hope that exists on the back end of this journey. And that even in this context, I've been able to find ways to comfort others. To support others in ways that are honestly an honor for me to even be able to step into that space. And I think oftentimes we walk through painful situations and circumstances, and we might do it in isolation or we might do it and we might keep the testimony to ourselves. But I knew that even in the midst of my pain, I wanted to testify about the goodness of God and how powerful God had been through my grief journey. And so I knew that God had revealed purpose even in my suffering. 

I wanted to offer that and take us here to this final point that I mentioned early on that I had so many questions for God. I was in so much pain. I was just in so much disbelief that my mom was actually gone, that where I had to land was to rest in God's sovereignty. And I had to trust in God's sovereign plan of it all. In this journey called life, we will experience two things. We will experience birth, perhaps a second birth, if you give your life to Christ. And then on the back end of this, we will experience death. Death is a sure thing that we will all walk through at some point in time. And I think the unfortunate thing was that my mom's passing - her death - came early. She was 54. And the manner in which she left was very heartbreaking in a variety of different ways. I missed the fact that she will never get to experience some of the very memories I had longed to create with her as my kids grow up. As she gets older and we celebrate her and she celebrates my accomplishments and awards. Just all of the different memories and things we could have created together, vacations and you name it, just holidays, cooking together. Those are experiences that we'll never get to have.

But I had to land and rest in God's sovereignty. I had to trust God's plan. And, I think the scripture that captures this the best for me is Proverbs chapter 3, verses 5 and 6. It says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your path straight.” I could not afford to lean on my own understanding as it pertains to managing and making sense of losing my mom. There was just absolutely no way to make sense of it. But what I could do was rest in God's sovereignty and know that in spite of all that had transpired, God would surely see me through. And I am standing here today and testifying that through the grace of God, I have been able to stand strong and I continue standing by his grace each and every day. 

I think it's important here to mention that navigating grief from a faith-based perspective is not about denying the pain or the complexity of emotions that come with loss. Instead, it's about finding a foundation of hope, comfort, and strength in the promises and presence of God, even in the midst of immense sorrow. 

So, as I wrap up just sharing more about how spirituality has been a significant piece of my healing journey in grief, particularly my faith as a Christian, I'll mention the verse that has kept me and continues to encourage and sustain me as I move forward. And that's from Revelations chapter 21, Verse 4. It says, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying, nor pain anymore. For the former things have passed away.” And so I take hope in knowing that at some point I will see my mom again. 

So thank you all for joining me today on this episode of Grieving in Color. May you find comfort in the promises of your faith and may you have hope to keep moving on. Until next time, keep hanging in there. Keep grieving in your own way. And keep grieving in color. See you soon. 

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Thank you for choosing to spend time with me on this episode of Grieving in Color. If today's episode has resonated with you, or if you know someone who might benefit from our conversation, please share this episode with them. Also, I would love to hear your thoughts, your stories, and the ways I can support you as you navigate your own grief. You can reach out to me on my website at www.drchinasaelue.com or connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram @drchinasaelue. Your participation, feedback, and story help us keep this conversation going and reach those who need it the most. Remember, there's no right way to grieve. There's only your way, and every shade of your grief is valid. 

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This episode of the Grieving in Color podcast is brought to you by Rachael Sanya and Productions.