When Lidia arrived in the United States in August of 2017, she came with a broken heart. This was because her first son who was 16 years old had died unexpectedly. As Lidia tells it “I felt guilty for my decisions. One of them was why I did not leave Venezuela before his death. Another was leaving all my family, job, and everything behind in Venezuela.
“Starting again here was very hard. When you have strong emotional pain, starting over is worse. But I thank God, because the Lord has given me many blessings. He helped me to move forward. I cannot count the blessings because there are many. Three of them are Karlene, Joanna, and the marvelous GriefShare group. The GriefShare leaders do excellent work every Tuesday with people like us who are suffering. They help us during the hard grief journey.
“Every time that I came to GriefShare, I learned more about my feelings. Before I came, I had received a lot of information from the Bible, psychologists, and books but it was there that I was able to understand many things and organize them. For example,
- Why my grief experience is harder than I imagined.
- Why I sometimes feel I am losing my mind or why my brain stops working.
- Why I can forgive myself because my Lord Jesus forgave me.
- How always God provides for me, so I do not need to fear the future.
- How to deal with my nightmares.
- God is supporting me. I do not have control.
- I have a new identity. I am more focused on people, more sensitive with others. I understand how much I depend on God.
- I can use my suffering to help others grow as the leaders of the Grief share are doing.
- Finally, the loss of my son was not the last chapter of my life; my story continues.”