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Strong Tower Radio

Balanced Living

Bob Benson

Vicki Griffin

Life After Loss Part 1

I want to welcome you to our new program, Balanced Living.

In our studios today, we have Vicki Griffin.

She's the founder and director of Lifestyle Matters, and she's also the health ministries leader of the Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

It's good to have you here in our studios today.

We've chosen a very interesting topic to talk about.

Tell us a little bit about what we're talking about today.

Well, today we're talking about life after loss, growth out of grief.

Well, if there isn't, we're all in trouble because loss is really a part of life and it's the hardest part and it often starts very very early.

There's a lot that we can do to reduce the risk of suffering and disease and problems whether it's at the financial or social realm, whether it's the spiritual realm, whether it's lifestyle and cause and effect.

But there's a lot that we don't understand, and there's a lot that is very painful that we need to address in this broken world of ours.

So it seems we're going to be addressing on 2 levels.

1 level is preventative, how to minimize the pain and discomfort of going through loss.

On the other side, some people don't address those issues until they find themselves in loss.

So we're going to try and help them on both sides.

The question is, how do you find strength, stability, security, and even hope in the midst of inexplicable, irreversible loss and brokenness?

How can you reduce the risk of unnecessary suffering in every realm?

The emotional pain is among the deepest levels that the human being will experience when they face a loss of a loved 1.

And so we're dealing with something that is very deep for each 1 of us here.

At some point each of us will experience this loss.

So let's jump right into this exciting topic today.

Yes, Pastor, loss has many faces and it touches every life.

In fact, it's difficult, as we have already stated, it's difficult to make sense of many terrible losses, whether it's death, injury, health, property, friends, that job you were depending on, that betrayal by that friend.

And it's very interesting to me, I just got through researching some new data on pain, and the areas of the brain that are activated when we experience physical pain are the same areas that are activated when we feel social pain or emotional pain.

And even the words that we use for inner pain are somatic.

You're not a pain in the neck, but that is the language.

And yet on the healing side, you've touched me.

And so in order to address the loss of physical health, we have to be able to address the need for how to nurture and grow during emotional loss as well.

So in this world, we go through these different trials, some of it's a result of sin.

God did not promise us a life without problems or sorrow.

In the rule, he said, you will have tribulation.

Yeah, but God assures us that 1 day there will be an end of this suffering and that there will be an end of tears and sorrow and pain.

And he says, be of good cheer, cheer up, I've overcome the world.

We suffer because we are ignorantly alienated from the life of God.

We make choices that are very harmful to ourselves and to others at every level.

There are choices that other people make that harm us, that are out of our control.

That person that had authority over you when you were a child and you were subject to abuse, that's a form of loss that impairs even the development of that child, their nervous system, their pain system, their proneness to various diseases, and that is something that is a result of this sinful world.

There are circumstances that we cannot control hurricanes and disaster, but whether by choice, chance, or circumstance, our mighty Savior has engineered us for renewal, recovery, and restoration.

I just think that text, Romans 8, 28, somehow the underlying mosaic that all of these things that we go through, it's like, why God have you allowed this?

But it says that all things will work together for good to those that love God.

Somehow, even through all the loss and all the pain, all the suffering that people experience, there's a silver lining that can become a cloud of glory once we start to understand God's plan for our life, that going through this experience actually strengthens us and actually blesses us, as I have found out in 1 of my experiences in life.

You were sharing it with me a few moments ago.

After we had our daughter, we were expecting another child.

We were 8 months in and all of a sudden 1 day my wife said, you know, I just don't feel the baby moving anymore.

So we went to see the doctor and the doctor was at 1 of these remote rural villages and the doctor came in on just that day, once every other few weeks, but he was there.

He said, after an hour of searching with the ultrasound, he said, I'm sorry to tell you, but your child is dead.

And our major doctor came in and said, so we're going to do a delivery tomorrow.

And then when the baby came out, all the fingers and toes were there.

Everything was there, but the breath of life wasn't there.

And at that point, when I barely uttered those words, I just remember emotionally, I was healed from the inside out.

And in the future, when I face challenging times, and I wonder, where's God in all this?

I just think back to that day, and I remember that God was there.

For Elcina, that was a much longer journey.

So sometimes healing takes place immediately.

Sometimes that woundedness, it lasts a while.

I love this illustration of the clash between faith and feelings where David prayed and he said, I will pray to the God of my life.

What you are sharing here is illustrative of a young pastor, Pastor John Claypool.

He wrote a book long ago called Tracks of a Fellow Struggler, and he was a young pastor when he lost his eight-year-old daughter to a tragic, painful, and protracted two-year battle with leukemia.

And during this trial, Pastor John discovered in a Bible promise that God's help, strength, and presence come in different kinds of ways.

Look at that promise that he was looking at, Isaiah 40, verse 30 and 31.

Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

They shall mount up with wings as eagles.

Creating Connections Part 1

I'd like to welcome to our program today on Balanced Living.

Today we're going to be talking about creating connections, why relationships matter.

And I'm here in the studio with Vicki Griffin, and we're going to look at this.

Vicki, talk to us a little bit about why relationships matter.

Well, I'm just so thankful and glad to be here with you, Pastor Benson.

As a Pastor, you certainly have a lot to do with helping to create and maintain positive relationships, not only with people, but also with God.

And we have all felt the need of a friend, someone to share our joys with, to lend a listening ear when trouble comes.

Time just seems to be such a scarce commodity today.

But time cultivating friendships is really time well spent.

And relationships are an important medium for personal as well as cultural and social growth.

I just think about the quality of friendships.

You know, it's when you go through some challenging times in life that you need those friendships to help carry you through and I just remember different times in life where there was a friend that was there when I needed them most.

Right and 1 of the mistakes that we can make regarding friendships is thinking that a certain friend, 1 friend, should be the be-all, do-all of your life.

We sometimes make that mistake thinking that our spouse has to be that person.

Who fulfills all of that at all times, and that is God.

I remember noting the difference between my husband and I, because a man isn't gonna say, hey, do you wanna go hang out at the mall, you know, or something like that.

But My husband, he had a racquetball friend, and he had a work on the car friend, and he had a business friend, and he didn't expect more from that person than they were able to give in a certain area.

And so to expect too much can create unrealistic expectations.

But positive relationships have a very powerful effect on health, well-being, and even longevity.

So we turn to our friends for counsel when we're perplexed, courage when facing a crisis, and compassion when we have failed.

Such intimate ties have a profound effect on our mental, physical, and emotional stability.

So true friendships I've learned from experience are neither instant nor perfect, but they certainly are important for maturity.

I heard a statement, and I agree with it, that time alone with God inspires us, but it's time with each other that really matures us, because that's when our flaws come out.

They require understanding, forgiveness, and room to grow.

A lot of this personal interaction with neighbors disappeared with the advent of the air conditioning.

Air conditioning is good, but porches started to disappear.

People would go out and sit on their porches in the evening.

But friends provide opportunities to tend to other people's needs and ward off the terrible, unhappy results of self-focused living.

And we've experienced that in our lives as well.

In fact, there was a meta-analysis, an aggregate analysis of a group of studies that reviewed 148 different studies on social ties, more than 300, 000 people.

And it found that people with strong social relationships were 50% less likely to die early than people without such support.

And a quote from the study said this, a lack of social relationships was equivalent to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.

It went on to say, I certainly don't want to downplay these other risk factors because of course they're very important, but we need to start taking social relationships just as seriously.

We think about, we were talking earlier about how God, there's a triune God, who there's a Father, the Son, Holy Spirit.

Amongst themselves, they have communication.

And so then when he created man and his image and his likeness, He made us so that we're relational and we actually need each other.

And so, part of our whole health message that we have from Scripture is we need that human relationship, that human element to be a whole person.

And isn't it interesting that in that creation week, that he created man and woman for relationship with each other.

He said in Genesis 2 verse 18, it is not good that man should be alone.

And he created the seventh-day Sabbath for a relationship with him.

So, as you were saying before, that relationship that goes upward to God and laterally to each other.

Studies bear this out and we're going to get to the brokenness in a moment here because we can be single but not sidelined and that's such an important thing.

So when couples act as a team, they're better able to ward off the detrimental effects of stress that zap immune health, energy, and strength.

So happily married couples, they tend to suffer from less sickness.

They get better faster, they have healthier hearts and suffer less dementia and even have longer life.

So 1 reason is that bonding hormones of well-being are released when we experience this nurturing effect of caring and connectedness.

But as I said before, You may be single, but that doesn't mean that it's God's plan for you to be sidelined, thrown aside, devalued, not important, not necessary in God's plan.

God knew that in this broken world, many would experience broken families, sorrow, betrayal, trials, And so he instituted a plan for all to experience healing relationships.

And as a pastor, I'm sure that you see this and experience this and nurture this in your own congregation.

It's fascinating to me that the first evangelist, which is Mary of Magdala, she was a single woman after she broke out of her lifestyle of sin.

As far as we know scripturally, she was a single woman, yet she was very connected with Christ in ministering, evangelizing, and sharing the gospel with others, and she had a community of support in the church family.

And you think of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who on the cross, Jesus paired her with the younger John, with the disciple John, in order to create family there.

So God created us in his own image with a deep and abiding need to give and share love and friendship as well as receive it, especially in our broken world of marred relationships, which will increase as we approach the end of time.

So having a variety of different friends to meet different needs can be especially helpful during trying times.

You know, it's fascinating, we're talking about friends as important as they are, as also church family can play an important role.

There's this text that talks about there's a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

Now, brothers can be very tight, but sometimes they can compete against each other and there can be some distances.

We can sometimes have some differences in our family that really our church family feels closer to us than even our biological family.

It is correct what you are saying and the healing benefits of these positive social ties.

And A positive social tie does not mean surrounding people with individuals that are just like yourself and think just like yourself, act just like...

In fact, the Bible says that we are to bear 1 another's burdens.

We are to forbear with 1 another and learn courtesy, compassion, how to listen, how to love pesky, annoying people.

Because we are pesky, annoying people sometimes.

So whether you live alone or you're part of a family, it's important to develop those positive ties.

And those positive ties mean that it's a medium for growth.

So what are some ways to cultivate fulfilling and meaningful social ties and relationships in your community?

What are some ways that people can foster healthy ties?

And this is with the caveat, understanding that there are toxic relationships that need to be reconsidered and terminated.

There's the other thing too, though, Vicki, is it's fascinating that God made us for a relationship with a husband and a wife, because I find that my wife knows my flaws, and sometimes she'll point them out to me in love, and it actually causes me to have to work on that.

Okay, and you think about some of the friendships.

I know that in ministry, God partnered Luther with Melanchthon.

Very opposite characters, very opposite personalities.

And so how wonderful it is to learn, to stretch, to grow.

And really in those kinds of situations, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

So we bring to the table different strengths, different weaknesses, and that's why God wants us to have a learner mindset.

So some of these ties that are developed can be established, especially in the church.

Coming to church, the Bible tells us that we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves.

That doesn't mean via YouTube, especially as we see the day of Christ appearing and coming, because we need each other.

There are neighborhood groups, special interest clubs.

As a person who really promotes fitness, your specialty before you became a pastor, and actually it doesn't remove the specialty of fitness and exercise.

Creating Connections Part 2

So we talked a little bit about why relationships are so important, but how about how to develop those relationships?

And there are some nice, timely tips for learning how to get acquainted, stay acquainted, and building positive friendships.

So 1 of them, the first 1, is actually just show up.

Don't stay away from that potluck or picnic.

And the more people see you, this is really interesting, it's called the exposure effect.

The more people see you, the more they're actually going to be inclined to want to get to know you.

So when you purchase a car, maybe you get a new red car, all of a sudden you notice all the other red cars on the road, that is called this exposure effect.

So when we show up, people will rate you as more likable.

Now we could open our mouths and ruin that, but it gives us a good headstart.

So don't shy away from that picnic or potluck, show up for the start.

No matter how uncomfortable it will be for you.

I understand people, some of you out there going, oh no, oh no, oh no, you just show up and you are going to experience a blessing.

Create a comfortable environment by listening to people, take an interest in them, make them feel special.

Yes, I've read some material on this how if you just ask someone about themselves that just opens a gate and they will share and be so grateful that someone is interested in their lives and then at the end of the conversation maybe they've done all the sharing they'll say, wow what a great gal that is or what a great guy.

And really you didn't get a chance to say anything.

That goes right along with that Proverbs 18, 24 says a man who has friends must show himself friendly.

And, and just learning how to smile, be the first 1 to say hello, and take a genuine interest in the other person.

And we've done other programming together and we talked about the subject of loss and suffering and pain, and it's very interesting that very often it is those very experiences in our own lives that is the golden key that's going to open the heart of friendship with another person.

So learning how to take an interest and notice others, say smile, ask how they're doing, remember names and interests.

Honestly, my wife and I, we took an advanced communication class and we traveled down to Charleston, the Carolinas to learn because communication is so important in the quality of that relationship.

My husband used to tell me true love seeks first to understand and then to be understood.

So being curious about someone else helps take the edge off that nervousness about yourself.

I had someone come to my office recently who wanted to get nutrition counseling.

That's my field is nutrition and he had opioid addiction, 200 pounds overweight, free from the addiction, but just multiple challenges.

And I was actually very nervous about this interview, nervous about how will I communicate with this person?

I went through some coaching training, and All I did is I looked at this person and I said, tell me your story.

And it opened this beautiful garden of conversation as he shared his life, his experience, his journey, and I was able to offer support and my nervousness was unwarranted.

But as a social worker, I was trained in social work.

1 really important point in learning how to establish friendships is when you first get acquainted with someone, don't spill your beans.

We want to share as we're establishing friendships.

This was a counseling situation, but in a friendship, in establishing a friendship, don't share too much too fast.

I've been with people who've done that and it doesn't make you feel comfortable reconnecting with them.

In fact, it actually tends to drive you away.

Or them away because they become embarrassed.

So share general interests first, taking time to cultivate each level of friendship.

So be discreet in how much you share when you first meet someone.

And some of us tend to be very gullible, very vulnerable.

And so it's very important to develop discretion and discernment.

So as your friendship grows, conversations may become deeper, but it's very, very important to cultivate each and every level of friendship.

So another point about making friends is be yourself.

Oh, you mean that Facebook identity where everything's perfect?

Being genuine, open, and honest about yourself and your aspirations is refreshing You know and on the other hand some of these Facebook posts a person becomes their own faux celebrity Putting all kinds of vulnerable information out there that just voyeuristic people who really don't have a personal care may be viewing this material and this is not healthy.

It's not healthy for the people that view it.

It's not healthy for the people that are revealing intimate things about themselves and it actually intensifies feelings of isolation and needs.

So 1 of the drawbacks of internet social ties is that participants tend to construct a virtual identity, devoid of the nuances and nonverbal cues present in face-to-face encounters.

So when you meet people, be open, honest, and clear about who you are, what your intentions are, being genuine, but not too vulnerable.

So flaws, foibles, and friends, we need to be realistic.

We appreciate that our friends will have different strengths and weaknesses than our own.

I really appreciated that about my husband because women tend to demand so much of each other and expect so much, but having that racquetball friend, you have the guy that works on the car with you friend, the friend at the office, no single friend or loved 1 can meet every need or be there for you at all times.

So keep your social circle wide enough to actually appreciate and embrace different kinds of friends with different personalities and different attributes.

Remembering that friends cannot read your mind or agree with you on everything.

Another point about making friends being accepting.

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Balanced Living

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