What Loss Can Teach Us: A Sacred Pathway to Growth and Healing: A Sacred Pathway to Healing

by Beth Taulman Miller

Overview

After a significant loss, many people rush to get back a sense of normalcy without allowing themselves time to heal and learn from that loss. Our loving and compassionate God longs to walk with individuals on a transformational journey through loss toward becoming more emotionally and spiritually whole. This book shows readers that God offers an "on ramp" to the process of tending to their pain.

What Loss Can Teach Us provides readers with stepping-stones for getting through loss and pain while discovering the lessons they can learn through that process. Including her own story of loss, the author guides us in spiritual practices that helped her heal.

While nothing changes its reality, loss can lead to an important juncture where readers will decide if they can trust God to take them through the hard process of growth and healing by allowing themselves to be shaped by the lessons they learn through their recovery. What Loss Can Teach Us can serve as a road map for that journey.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780835819619
Publisher:	Upper Room Books
Publication date:	11/19/2020
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Beth Taulman Miller is a spiritual director who lives in Chicago. She is cofounder of Thrive Resources, a center for spiritual direction and pastoral counseling. Since 2009 she has also been part of the team at Faithful and True, a counseling center dealing with sexual addiction, where she and her husband, Greg, are the directors of workshops.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 11

Introduction 15

1 Good Grief 19

Spiritual Practice: Creating a Healing "Sanctuary" 28

2 God as Midwife, Not Rescuer 31

Spiritual Practice: Dialogue Journaling 37

3 Remain in My Love 39

Spiritual Practice: Imaginative Prayer 49

4 It's a Both/And 51

Spiritual Practice: Breath Prayer 59

5 Olly Olly Oxen Free: Community 61

Spiritual Practices: Visio Divina and Covenant Groups 74

6 Clean Anger 77

Spiritual Practice: The Sacred Discipline of Plate Throwing 87

7 Take Off That Ugly Sweater: A Look at Shame 89

Spiritual Practice: Centering Prayer 101

8 It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint: Forgiveness as a Process 103

Spiritual Practice: Lectio Divina 115

9 Welcoming What Is 117

Spiritual Practice: Welcoming Prayer 124

10 Embracing Our Bodies 125

Spiritual Practice: Compassionate Body Scan 133

11 The Larger Story 135

Spiritual Practice: Reframing 144

Appendix A Depression and Trauma 147

Appendix B Small Group Discussion Guide 150

Appendix C Additional Spiritual Practices for Loss 157

Appendix D Journeying with Our Grief Through Movies 162

Appendix E Suggested Reading 167

Notes 171