From My Editing Work: I Grieve Like Everyone Else

The first thing I acknowledge is that I grieve just like everyone else; I do not grieve as a minister. I have the very same emotions, the very same needs as all persons who experience loss. (p. 20)

This is from the forthcoming book Surviving a Son’s Suicide by Ron Higdon. It’s interesting that I’m editing a book regarding grief on today of all days. But so it goes.

This line is so incredibly important, both for ministers and for lay people (who should all be ministers!) to remember. Pastors expect certain things of themselves that are not realistic. Congregations expect unrealistic things of pastors. To a lesser extent, I saw this in our own experience both while James was fighting cancer and while we were dealing with grief. I’m not an ordained minister. I am a publisher, and by inclination a teacher. Yet people wondered why those who taught could not always face life according to their own teaching.

Of course we never taught that we, or anyone else, would deal with such things perfectly. Positions of leadership or other activities that put one in the public eye do add a dimension to dealing with difficulties or with grief. But the person still grieves as a person. That path is individual.