The Emotional, Physical and Spiritual Impact of Grief

Well, hey everybody and welcome back to Qualified, the place where incredible people share their stories of overcoming great adversity and loss to inspire you and give you hope. I'm Michelle Heaton. When we experience loss in our lives, it can have a real emotional, physical, and spiritual impact on us. After the sudden death of my son, Sean, my emotions were all over the place. It was a roller coaster of grief, sadness, depression, and anxiety. And it took its toll on my body as well. I experienced chest pain, nausea, headaches, sleeplessness, and so much more. And when it came to my faith, I was stretched to what I thought were the limits going from anger at God, to clinging to him tighter than I ever had before. Fortunately, that's the place I remained. And it's my faith that has sustained me. Well, my guest today has also experienced a life full of adversity. She's had her share of trials, including fires, floods, tornadoes, and even a lightning strike. But she's here today to share her story of faith, and how she's living her life with determination and purpose. She's an international leadership mentor, the author of 13 books, the host of her own talk radio show, a media expert, and keynote speaker for organizations around the world. Her name is Marnie Swedberg. And it's my great honor and privilege to have her as my guest on the show today. Welcome to Qualified Marnie.

Thanks for having me, Michelle, so great to be here.

Thank you. Well, Marnie, as I said, you're really living out what you were created to do. You're traveling the world and working with others, to host conferences and radio shows and podcasts interviews like this one, to help people recognize their potential, and to understand the importance of faith in their lives. So can you just start off by sharing a little bit about yourself? What was the greatest loss you've experienced in your life so far, and talk about the emotional, physical and spiritual response you had to your grief.

I want to start with the first greatest loss, okay, which happened when I was in my early 20s, my husband and a man named Dan or friends, and I and a lady named Renee, we're friends. And we happened to get married one month apart from each other, Dan and Renee, and my husband and I. And so we both moved at the same time to within one hour from each other all far away from our families, and within one hour from each other. So we were friends of far and we have this in common that we were newly married. And I heard on the news one day that a lady by the name of my friend or a knee had been killed in a head on collision. And I called down immediately and I said, Dan, tell me this is not our Rene in his in sobs he said yes She's gone. And it was the first time that I had ever experienced the kind of grief that lays you flat. I remember feeling like a mountain had landed on my body. I was just flat out. And it was so close. Our stories were so close. You know, we just gotten our love affairs and just getting married. We were just less than one year married when this happened. And I could only imagine what I would feel like if Dave had been taken instead of Renee. And I remember thinking, how can this hit me so hard? Physically, I expected it to hit me emotionally. But I did not expect the physical like you were saying that physical hit is really shocking. And you almost feel like something must be wrong with me. But it is so normal. It's so normal. So then fast forward. I grew up in a Christian family and my parents loved God loved each other and loved us and I was always a daddy's girl and we just had so much fun together and then got married and moved away and had a family of our own and we were living eight hours north of my parents and they had come up we owned a retail store in a restaurant at the time they had come up to hang out with us for a week and my dad was at the store the whole week and he was climbing up and down the stairs and he was moving shelves and he was just helping us you know, relay in a section of the store and then they drove home on a Saturday we drove down on Monday, the week next. And they they were at home there in the city we were coming to to go to a buyer show for the store and on the way into town. I called them My mom and dad and yep, they were excited to have us over for steak that night for dinner. And so we went into the buyer show, and we came out and it was a big metal building. And we came out and I had missed the call. So I just listened to my message machine and the message said, Marnie, your dad is dead. Click.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. And apparently, my face went absolutely white. Because there was a lady standing across from me. She said, Ma'am, ma'am, are you okay? And I said, I don't think so. And my husband came over. And I said, we have to go right now. I don't, I don't even know what this means. But it said, you know, I just told him. So at that point in my life, I had been walking with Jesus since I was a little girl. And at that point in my life, I had learned to use the 911 of Jesus's name. And all I could do was just say, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, I just started saying that over and over again, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, we're walking toward the van. And I'm just saying, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Well, we get even close to the van. This is less than five minutes from the time I had received that call. And God just put a thought in my mind, Michelle, he's he put this thought in my head, he said, Marnie, you did not get what you wanted, which was my dad said, but I gave your dad exactly what he asked for. And in that moment, I had memories just flow through my mind, of my dad's having me sit on his lap, even as an adult woman, have a sit on his lap and say, Oh, sweetheart, I love you so much. If I had boys, it was different. He'd say, but I had all girls, and I don't want to grow old and be a burden to you girls, I hope I don't grow old and be a burden to you girls, he would say that over and over, and over. And at 72 years old, Michelle, he died of a heart attack in one second, he just went from buying and healthy and helping us to move our stuff around the store, to gone with Jesus. And God comforted me in a way that only he could. I recognize that while I truly did not want my dad to be gone, God said it was time. And my dad got exactly what he had asked for.

Well, I'm very sorry about your friend, Renee, and also about your father. And thanks for telling us about your own experience of physical pain, because it really does come as a shock to many of us at first, but you're right, it's normal. And in the case of your father's passing, I am so glad that you got that sense of comfort about it. That was beautiful, and just what you needed to know. You know, so many people experience grief in different ways. And I think many people, especially people who don't have a firm foundation of faith in their life, they often ask the question, why would a good God allow pain and suffering in our lives? And unfortunately, it can move some people away from any kind of faith? How would you answer that question Marnie?

So if we say that we live on Earth, right, we don't live in heaven, we live on Earth, right? We also don't live in hell, we live on Earth. So there is a heaven and there is a hell. And we don't live there. Right now we live on Earth. And I say this is the middle choice. This is the middle choosing place. This is everything that's happening here in our lives. Whether it's good, a little taste of heaven, or whether it's bad, a little taste of Hell is giving us opportunity to decide what we want to have happen after we die. After we leave this life that we have here on Earth, which is maybe 100 years if it's really long, usually shorter than that, right? What's going to happen after that, and so every time that we face something painful, like observing a child being spoken, meanly or, or being harshly treated by an adult or by another child, that's a little taste to hell. Every time we see a sunrise, or every time we see someone express love to someone, that's a little taste of heaven. And the thing is that God is pure good. That is heaven, pure good. And I even think it's interesting. We're talking about grief here today. And I think it's interesting that it's so very clear in the book of Revelation of the Bible that it says in heaven, there will be no more tears. Yes, no more goodbyes. No more grief. So clearly, God understands that on Earth, we are going to have some of these harsh feelings. And I think that goodbyes, especially the kind that we're talking about today, or someone's literally gone from Earth, those I think God recognizes those are just the hardest things in the whole world to deal with. Right? But but the taste of hell them. If you would say in the grieving process, the taste of hell is that moment of separation, where we recognize they're not coming back. This is this has gone, I had it, but now it's gone forever. When we recognize that that is what health feels like. And that's where a choice to go after we die is somewhere that feels like that forever, versus going to the place where God says no more of that forever. And if we were to say, How could a good God allow this, he allows it because he gave us freedom to choose to choose whether we want to spend time with him. We want to love Him and be loved by Him. We want to spend eternity with Him. Or if we don't, he allows that choice also. So I say it's really not about God being a good or bad God, that evil exists here on Earth. It's about us being human.

Great, I love that answer. We have a choice. Thank you. So following a loss, some people are not only faced with their deep grief, but eventually they began to sometimes wonder about their purpose, especially if their purpose while their loved one was here was tied up and being a caregiver to them or being a mother being a wife. How can someone who's grieving a loss find purpose again in their life?

Yeah. So what happens with grief is that there's this immediate, gigantic hole in your life. So I like to say that losing someone very close to us is kind of like having your arm cut off. Yep. And there will never be a day in your life where you don't look down at where that arm used to be. And long for about. But you will learn to use your other arm and your teeth, whatever else it takes to make it work, right. And if you think it's just gonna get easy, and like you'll you'll, if people say, well, you'll get over this, you'll get past it actually, no, you will never stop missing your arm. Yes, ever. However, you will learn to live without it, you will. And one of the things I like to remember is that it is a gift to grief. Grief is this huge gift. Like if you don't if someone passes away in your life, and you don't feel any grief, it means you had no relationship, what's right. The fact that you are experiencing grief means that they were incredibly valuable in your life. And so to just as quickly as possible, start thanking God for all the things that that person meant to you did with you, gave you provided for you, you know, and thank Him that He is going to take care of you the rest of your life, just like he did before, maybe through a different method. Totally different way now, but he's still God. And there is a future for you. Yeah,

I love that. So many of my guests had have talked about that and said, You know, it's like the price of love the level of grief. And, you know, so this statement, I've heard a lot when my son died, he was my only child. And so I constantly got this comment. I can't imagine how you feel, you know, people don't know what to say. And I felt like I wanted to talk to other bereaved parents because they could. And so I did a lot of that. And I think that's helpful to other people. But what's another resource that you can think of that might be helpful to people that are in grief?

It was one because this morning, I was thinking about that, like resources that I could recommend. And the first thing that came to my mind was the book of Psalms. Just how, I mean, it's like, David is such a great example of somebody who went through serious highs and serious lows. Really, really lows. And he was so I think the reason God loved him so much. And you know, God always compared the other kings to David like, this was a good king, but not as good as David or awful thing. Nobody like David, you know, I think the reason God loved David so much, even though he was such a, he was such a mess in so many ways. But I think the reason God loved him so much was because he was authentic with God. He actually believed that God knew what he was thinking before he said it. So I might as well be honest, because God already knows. And I love that level of faith and humility that just says, I know you already know. So here I come, because right now I am mad, or I am so confused, or I am hurting so badly. And David just did that. He came in to the presence of God with praise. Thank you that you're here to listen to me right now. I am so mad. Whatever it is. He was just super honest. And then he would close, close with, but I praise you because you are God and I'm not and I praise you for that. So I really love the Psalms in that. They're comforting they are. They're really vindicating. I think that these emotions you're having are just normal. You're not crazy. You're not being a wimp. It's just normal. It's normal, and God totally gets it. You know, it's interesting that the only time Jesus cried, was at this side of Lazarus grave, even though he knew he was gonna raise him from the dead. I think he cried because he really felt the pain of the people around him who did not know that he was gonna raise him. I mean, it was just rough, pain, loss, grief, it's, it's hard on us.

It is. And I agree with you 100% The Scriptures are an excellent resource source of comfort during that time. So I mentioned before the turn author of 13 books, and you wrote a book trilogy called the heavens series, and in Book Three, how to experience heaven on earth. You say that God created the world to be an analogy, when we soar high, enjoying something wonderful or dreaming beautiful thoughts. These are tastes of heaven on earth. And when we experience pain, sadness, disappointment or loss, this is a taste of hell on earth. Can you get Can you unpack that break it down for us so that we can understand what that means?

So I'm going to start with Ephesians two, verse six. In the Bible, it says that we are seated in the heavenlies with Christ. So if we have trusted Jesus Christ, that when He came to earth to live, he came as God in the body of a man, and he lived a perfect life. And then he was killed as a, as a criminal. And on across all of the sin of mankind was placed on him. And then he was buried, and then the third day, he rose again. Okay, so now he sits next to God interceding for us. So when we start with this picture of him sitting next to God in heaven, and then it says in Ephesians, two, six, that he did this so that we could be seated in the heavenlies with Christ, and it's in the present tense, we don't have to wait to go to heaven. So how does that actually work? On Earth that works like a dolphin. I like to think of a dolphin. So a dolphin is a water dweller, but an air breather every few minutes, less than five, every few minutes, that dolphin has to come up for air or it starts to suffocate. We are built to be earth dwellers, but prayer breathers. And if we start to feel stress, or anxiety, or pain of any kind, we are invited to come sit in the heavenlies with Christ, in our spiritual souls in our emotional base, we just go sit in the heavenlies with Christ. So anytime on Earth, that we are experiencing sadness, grief, pain, anxiety, stress, pressure, any of those hellish thoughts or emotions. Jesus is standing at our hearts door, and he's knocking. And he's saying, Hey, can I come in and talk to you about this, from my perspective, from the heavenly perspective, because actually, he wants to bring good out of every last thing that happens in our lives. And we can hold on to the bad and experience hellish emotions. Or we can release those emotions to God, and experience heavenly emotions. And there are different levels of this speed thing that's happening. So I am not saying that immediately after you lose someone, you're going to just be full of joy and dancing, that's probably not going to. And if you look at scripture, you know, I mean, it gives him Scripture gives 30 days for everybody to don't do any work even I mean, just stop working altogether. Do you get your brain giving your brain time to process this? So it's not like you just go from devastation right into these glorious feelings. But honestly, the smaller emotions, yeah, we actually can, we can actually release a stress in a second, and have it be redeemed with something like joy or hope, or patience. So as we walk through our lives on earth, we get to have tastes of heaven, all the way along. And it's our choice, whether we focus on the heavenly things, or we focus on the earthly or hellish things. And that's a choice that we all have to make. And I just love. I love to think of Earth as the choosing place. It's the choosing place. So what we choose is what we experience.

Well, I love the dolphin analogy. I think that's beautiful. And as a believer, I know that still small voice that calls me to come back to the surface, you know that tethering line that's calling me back to God. But I'd like to take a minute and have you kind of address somebody who may be grieving right now in deep sorrow, who has never had a relationship with God. What would you say to that person?

Oh, my goodness. Well, first of all, I would say I'm so sorry for your loss. have, you know, we've been talking here about the pain of loss and just how excruciating it really is. Yeah. And even I'm almost crying. Thinking of your pain right now. And I personally can't imagine doing that pain without the comfort of God carrying me. You know, there's that there's that poem, you know, if a walk a walk in, in the sand, and all of a sudden, there's only one pair of footprints. And it's, it's, you're like, where do you go, but that's actually when he's carrying us. And, and I really think there's so much truth to that poem, The footprints poem, because, honestly, that's what he wants to do. He wants to help you through this. And if you are raging at him for allowing it. That's, that's maybe I understand why you might want to do that. But it's not too helpful. And so it's, it's just, it is what it is, it happened, you're here. And now it is a choice again, as this is choosing time. Do you want to keep experiences, the devastating hellish emotions you're experiencing right now? Or do you want to get some relief? Because I think Michelle, one of the words that I use most in my prayer, life is relief. It is such a relief to me. That God's in control, it's such a relief to me, that he can bring good out of what I can only see as bad. It's such a relief to me, that my hopelessness can be replaced with hope that my sadness can be replaced with joy. It's a relief. And that's what I would want for anyone listening who doesn't know Jesus yet. Trust Jesus, and I tell you what, it's just going to be a big relief. It's not like everything gets perfect all at once. It doesn't like that. You're not in heaven yet. But but you're you'd be on your way to heaven. And that would bea good start.

Yeah, I love it. That's good advice, too. You don't have to carry that burden on your shoulders of trying to control everything in the world. Yeah, yeah. So back to the Scripture, then do you have a favorite scripture or a story in the Bible that you believe illustrates the value of faith when we're suffering?

So yeah, the one that the one that totally comes to my

21. Jesus has been beaten nearly to death. They made him carry his own cross at this point. So his back is absolutely shredded from the whipping. He's got a crown of thorns in his head. He's just exhausted. And they put this heavy, heavy cross on his back. And they've got people along the sides of the road jeering at him, calling him names, shouting, I mean it. I can't even fathom the intenseness of that moment. And Jesus is doing it. He is somehow carrying this cross. But at some point, he couldn't carry the cross anymore. He falls to the ground. And the soldiers who are right there, they just grabbed some poor guy from the side of the road. His name was siren, Simon of Cyrene. They grab him, they say, here, you carry the cross. And I remember one day feeling like I was so desperate, I was so needy. I was so broken. I was like making other people do jobs that I would usually do. And I was like, God, I don't think that this is right. I kind of don't think that I should be like taking advantage of people in this way. Can you just show me one example in the Bible of someone who was totally obedient to you, but caused other people pain. And this was the story he brought to my mind. When God himself when Jesus in the flesh, needed to pick some poor stranger to carry his cross. If Jesus sometimes needs help, when he was hurting, when you need help, when you're hurting, it's okay. It's a season. Just receive God's help that he provides for you and don't worry about it. You're going to be okay.

Hmm, yes, perfect. All those details in Scripture are put there for a reason. And yes, even Jesus needed help when his burden was too heavy. And it shows us that we too can ask for help at the worst moments in our life. So Marnie, you've really packed a lot of goodness into our short conversation, and I'm so grateful for the wisdom you've shared from your own life. You talked about how your own losses impacted you not only emotionally, but also physically, and that even though at the time you thought you might have something seriously wrong in your body, you've since come to realize that this is a normal part of grief. You told us that when your own father died, and you were still in a state of shock, that you just cried out to Jesus, and that within a matter of minutes were filled with an unexplained Animals peace and comfort. You explain how this life is a choosing place, and how the choice to taste heaven or hell on earth is up to us. You like and losing a loved one to losing a limb, and said that while you will never stop missing your arm, you will learn to live without it. You helped us understand that grief is the price we pay for losing someone we love. And so we should be thankful for the time we had with them. And trust God to take care of us in life moving forward. You reminded us of the footprints in the sand poem, and that God is there to carry us through the hard time, it will allow him to, and he pointed out that even Jesus needed help on his way to the cross when his burden was too much to bear. So it's okay for us to ask for help. When we're hurting. Marnie, what other lessons have you learned having experienced your own losses and adversity that you could share with someone listening who needs help right now?

Well, my favorite one is my 911, which is just Jesus, Jesus Jesus. Words, that works every time you guys even sometimes, even sometimes, when it's been too intense for me to get out to syllables. I've had to start with God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God until I can settle down enough to start saying, Jesus. But honestly, there is there is no one who knows you better, loves you more cares, and can help more than God. And there's a verse in the Bible that says, The foolish man in his pride does not look to God. It's the definition of pride to say, I can do it myself, I really don't need God. It is humility, that says, God, I believe you exist, and that you want to help me here. That's the definition of faith from Hebrews 11. Six, it says, in order to please God, you must a believe that he exists, which even the demons do that so no big deal, right? But be you must believe that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. That's humility, us just saying you are here. You're real. You love me, you're worth me, I need you. That's humility. And so that's just what I have learned the faster in fact, one of my mentors, she's gotten to Jesus now. But her name is Nancy Missler. And she rote the book The Way of Agape. And she's one of my mentors early on. And she would say, spiritual maturity has nothing to do with what you're experiencing right now. It has everything to do with how long it takes you to run it to Jesus. I love that. It's just so good. So my goal is to let hardly any seconds elapsed between when I begin feeling pain, stress, anger, hurt, disappointment, grief, loss, whatever the feeling is, and I tell you like your you started on my list earlier. I mean, we had had sudden death in the family head injuries, cancer, ambulance, ride surgeries, fires, floods, a car wreck sinking boats, I mean, talk about, we've just had so many things, I've had so much practice with this. If I could pass along, pass along a thing that you could learn to do, and that you can really tell if you're doing it. Just how long did it take you to start talking to Jesus about it? Because he is the answer. And the Holy Spirit is our comforter, and our counselor. And I just encourage you, as soon as you can run everything to Jesus because he truly cares.

Yes, he does. And thank you for sharing Nancy's words of wisdom there about spiritual maturity being measured by how long it takes to run to Jesus. So true. Well, Marnie, I'll put a link to your website in the show notes so listeners can learn more about you and your ministry. But before we close you told me that you have a favorite theme verse for life. Would you mind sharing that with us now?

Okay, it's Second Corinthians nine eight out of the NIV version, and it says, But God, I love the beginning but God, but God is able to make all grace abound toward you. So that in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. I just love that. That's God, you know, I'm here some of the time okay, maybe pretty good. But God is all about these superlatives all about the all in the abounding and that is where our hope lies is in him.

Yes. So good to know. Well, thank you again for agreeing to come on the show and talking with us today. It was such a pleasure.

Oh, thank you, Michelle. This has been such a delight.

Grea. So for those of you listening, I hope you enjoyed Marnie's positive approach to living life with God at the center of it all. She was a true inspiration to me because she just tells it like it is. We will have loss in this life and it will hurt like hell. But like Marnie said, we can hold on to the bad thoughts and experience hell on earth. Or we can release those emotions to God and get a taste of heaven here and now. So I'm reminded of the dolphin, dwelling in his habitat, but only for so long before coming to the surface for air. I remember not just praying to God in the beginning of my grief, but needing God like air. This life is a choosing place like Marnie said, and It's my prayer that you will choose to cling to God in your sorrow. Thanks for listening