Shepastor: "Highlights Part II from Still a Mother: Journeys Through Perinatal Bereavement, by Joy Freeman and Tabatha Johnson"

Shepastor: “Highlights Part II from Still a Mother: Journeys Through Perinatal Bereavement, by Joy Freeman and Tabatha Johnson”

Last week, Shepastor gave excerpts from an interview with Rev. Joy Freeman and Rev. Tabatha Johnson concerning their soon to be released book, Still a Mother: Journeys Through Perinatal Bereavement.

They shared the personal experiences that led them to write about this topic and provided insights as to why clergywomen may “hide” and the Church may avoid addressing perinatal loss.

This week, Shepastor will continue the interview with Tabatha and Joy where they offer words of wisdom for the women facing this kind of loss as well as practical recommendations for the Church regarding best practices for support…

In your opinion, how should the Church in general and clergywomen in particular address this issue?

Joy:

We need to take advantage of “Perinatal Loss Month” in October to raise awareness of these struggles. The Church can use this month to provide special services specifically designed to recognize this type of loss. While there are not a lot of resources for this type of service, this topic is raising awareness and with this awareness is coming more resources. The Episcopal Church liturgy has some resources that one of our clergy contributors has found helpful.

We also need to grow our ability to reach out and bring these children who have died way too soon into the church through special rituals that recognizes their place in the church family. For example, one thing that was particularly meaningful to me was when my pastor brought both a rose and a candle when she came to do a private service for us. The rose placed on the organ the Sunday after a baby was born was a tradition in the church; the candle was part of a tradition of a service at Christmas time for those who were grieving. She did a wonderful job of combining the traditions in a very meaningful way.

Also we need to be thinking about our traditions we hold around Mother’s and Father’s day. Are these traditions helpful to women and men who are healing from perinatal loss, or do these traditions unwittingly perhaps create more pain?

Tabatha:

I think we could be more open—it starts with a few brave souls who are willing to say, 'this happened to me and this is how I REALLY feel about it and about God.' Church is not a place to show our best facade, it's the place where we ought to feel safe to show our real self and reach out for understanding and help. In turn, the church needs to be better at being willing to allow folks to be authentic in their midst—and hearing another person voice their pain is not often an easy task.

It also begins before someone says, “I am grieving.” Whether through worship, studies, conversations, blogs, etc, we need to work consciously at setting an environment in which the expression of grief is what it really is—a normal part of the human experience.

Clergy-whether they have this happen in their lives or not—are in a unique position to help call the people of God to a better understanding of church…of a church that can truly be about being present with someone in their grief, walk with them on that difficult road and be witness to the ways in which God provides peace and healing (which is not an immediate thing). Clergywomen must realize they can’t counsel themselves through their own grief.

They can say, directly and indirectly, we are not as a congregation going to continue to be 'secret keepers'—or keep pretending there are wounded folks within our midst who feel they must suffer their grief in silence. We will instead give space to those who want to share their story and their grief. Because by doing so we are a community of faith who also shares in the knowledge of all of our children-whether they are present with us or not. And, grieving parents need to know that their children are remembered-that they too have a place within the faith community even though they have died.

What recommendations and or advice can you offer to someone facing these painful realities?

Joy:

Give yourself time, permission and space to feel everything you feel. Do not be afraid to reach out for help and let others who have walked this path accompany you. Even if you do nothing with it, writing down your feelings and thoughts during this time of grieving can be very healing and cathartic.
Know it is ok to be angry at God. Goodness knows we as clergywomen have and if we can be angry, then so can you!

Keep the lines of communication open between you and your significant other. This is a very stressful time and men and women grieve differently, and it is helpful to understand this. Good communication can ease the stress this type of loss can create in a relationship.

Tabatha:

Just be yourself—don't have expectations of what you should do, what you ought to do, or that your grief has to be experienced any particular way. This is a unique experience to you and while there are many others who have been in similar circumstances, what you are going through doesn't have to be done a certain way.

Whatever you feel about what happened, about God, about your pain—there is nothing wrong with it—and it's okay to not like what other people tell you and claim for yourself the things that are helpful and toss away the things that are not (including anything Joy and I say!)

Finally-grieving takes time. There are no shortcuts-and really this is something that will be with you always. It changes, takes on new form, and you learn new ways of living with it, but it's always around somehow. That's not to say that eventually joy and laughter and happiness cannot once more be experienced—of course it will be—but it takes time to figure things out—to know who you are and how things have changed and to find peace within it all.

Whatever that peace looks like for you-it's okay. There's no 'right' way, there's your way, in your time, with your grief.

What else do you think is important for clergywomen and the church to understand about this issue?

Joy:

This is a forever grief. Every baby dedication, baptism, wedding, graduation, major life milestone experience for our congregation or one of our own living children is a reminder of our child/children with whom we will never have these experiences.

We want our children remembered. Do not be afraid to mention them to us. Yes we might cry, scream or have any other type of emotional response, but we need to know that we are not the only ones that remember our little ones.

Tabatha:

This is something that happens to the whole family—everyone in the family grieves—and in different ways. Don't ignore the other members of the family-they have their own needs too.

The reality is, this issue/grief/loss is already woven into the fabric of the church—the difference here is that we are advocating for taking it out of the shadows and saying-this is here-it's real and it hurts like hell. Why keep making it a secret? How helpful is that for our healing and relationship with God? Also—it's totally fine to keep asking-even demanding-'God where are you in this mess?'

Finally, Joy and Tabatha, share three (3) specific things regarding self-care for clergywomen facing perinatal loss…

Tabath:

1.Give yourself permission to be who you are

2.Give yourself “quiet spaces.” Don’t run from your grief. Spend some time in silence

3.Remember that you don’t have to (nor can you) control everything.

Joy:

1. Find people who can care for your family. Identify resources to help you and your family process grief

2.Find ways to mark your child’s presence. Create a memory box or a labyrinth…something permanent that honors your child’s life on earth

3.Avoid isolating yourself, especially from your significant other.

WOW! What a powerful interview! With depth of emotion, transparency, vulnerability and compassion, Rev. Joy Freeman and Rev. Tabatha Johnson have provided to us real life examples of and practical recommendations for how clergy women and the Church can process through the pain of perinatal loss.

Look for Still a Mother: Journeys Through Perinatal Bereavement, in February, 2016 through Judson Press. You can pre-order copies of this book by visiting, Judson Press, Still a Mother


Visit Joy and Tabatha’s blog at www.chaplainhood.blogspot.com

Until next Wednesday,
In Faith, Hope and Perseverance,
Pastor Chris
www.shepastorchris.org

Shepastor: “Highlights Part I from Still a Mother: Journeys Through Perinatal Bereavement, by Joy Freeman and Tabatha Johnson”

Shepastor: “Highlights Part I from Still a Mother: Journeys Through Perinatal Bereavement, by Joy Freeman and Tabatha Johnson”

Last week Shepastor shared the following regarding the painful realities of losses in life…

...One of the most tragic and painful losses, however, is the loss of a child. Statistics show that couples who lose a child are at higher risk for separation and or divorce. They are also at higher risk for depression, isolation, and other physiological and psychological maladies.

Harder yet may be the loss of an unborn child. Sadly, frequently, people minimize the pain women and their mates endure as a result of perinatal loss… For clergy women, this grief is often hidden due to perceived and real pressure to "grin and bare" it as a "woman of faith."

The “call” does not exempt a woman from grief, anger, depression, and befuddlement. It can be even more complicated when the woman is a pastor. Over the next two weeks Shepastor will share insights about the "elephant" of perinatal loss and women clergy.

Today, Shepastor begins a two part series, highlighting the soon to be released book, Still a Mother: Journeys through Perinatal Bereavement (Judson Press), by Rev. Joy Freeman and Rev. Tabatha Johnson. Below, Joy and Tabatha answer some specific questions about this sensitive and important topic…

Why did you choose to write about this topic?

Joy:

My writing about this topic was not intentional at first. My own experience with pregnancy loss was one I was open about a bit, but because it involved a medically necessary termination and I live in a more conservative part of the country I choose to keep that part silent. It was only after nurses at work that I am close to asked to know more of what happened that I began sharing verbally my story. A couple even told me I needed to write, but I did not take it seriously. A couple years later at the first chaplain conference I attended after Hope’s death, I had to field the inevitable question of how many kids. I would answer hesitantly two, one on earth and one in heaven. As any good chaplain would, they realized there was more of a story to tell and would query for more and listen intently as I shared. Almost always the response would be you need to tell/write your story.

It was this encouragement from colleagues to tell my story and my own personal realization that the only way for this topic to become less taboo is for those of us who are touched personally to speak out. In the car on the drive back from the conference my husband and I realized I was being called by God to no longer keep silent and it was time to write my story.
Shortly after that, I met Tabatha and she raised the idea of this book. And now here we are.

Tabatha:

I choose to write about this topic first from my own experiences as a woman who has experienced two miscarriages and then as a clergywoman trying to help other women process their grief. It's a lonely place to be—a mother without her child(ren). I think we live in a society that avoids grief in general, and definitely avoids grief involving the death of children. So, I wanted a place where the sharing of those experiences is helpful in hearing another's story and is also affirming of sharing one's own story.

Speaking of my own experiences, I was in my mid-twenties, and in the course of a year had two miscarriages, was diagnosed with cancer and began my first ministry position. It was a rough year, one that profoundly changed me. I looked for resources to help-both theological and personal testimony and could not find any that seemed to fit me and what I needed at the time.

I felt the need to be 'real,' and I felt what I was seeing out there may have been helpful for some, but for me didn't feel 'real' to me--theologically or emotionally. There seemed to me to be a rush to give thanks to God for healing, to be healed or to say that everything was good. And for me, it wasn't and I was so angry with God there was no way I could give thanks for anything. I was doing my best to serve God while my whole theology was falling apart.

Another of my motivations for writing and editing this book is this idea that clergywomen are not ultra-spiritual or better in any way because we are clergywomen. We, too, get angry, jealous, depressed, hurt, lonely... I wanted a safe place where clergy women, along with lay women could read stories that rang with truth so that they could then turn around and say, “this is my story...” and feel like wherever they are and whatever they feel is legitimate. This project, to me, is a way for women to support each other, to hear their truths without judgment and then to be able to share their own story.

Share some specific things you believe clergywomen “hide” and the Church avoids related to this topic…

Joy:

Society in general and church specifically, I believe, are extremely uncomfortable discussing this matter...discussing the very intimate but painful details of medical processes that surround fertility issues and perinatal loss. There is very little understanding of what it means physically to experience this type of loss. The result can be a distinctly felt shaming of reproduction issues and difficulties that go along with them and so the personal challenge is dealt with in a very isolated manor.

I don’t think we raise enough how we feel about and deal with our felt imperfection. Some examples being: broken body image, broken faith and broken relationship with God.

I don’t think we discuss enough just how this topic affects the fathers and the siblings that may be in the family. If it is talked about at all, it usually centers on the woman. I think in an effort to protect those around us and minimize the fishbowl affect for our families, we as clergywomen do not acknowledge to our church community that they need to be reaching out to our husbands and children as well as us.

One topic that is especially hidden is perinatal loss that happens because of a terminated pregnancy. The politically charged atmosphere around this specific type of perinatal loss makes it especially scary for clergywomen and the church to talk about. This silence has created an atmosphere of shame and creates even more pain. If we would be willing to look beyond the black and white to the fact that this type of perinatal death is very gray, we would see that such decisions are never made lightly. They are made within the context of perinatal end of life conversations of quality over quantity and parental love. Such a view would open up a whole new area of much needed spiritual grief care.

Tabatha:

There's so much pressure to be clergy-to represent God, the church, our ministry, we can fall into a trap of feeling the need for perfection. I can't speak for my male colleagues, but I know as a clergywoman I feel the pressure to have everything together all the time-both at home and in ministry. It's hard, I think, to show how human we really are and that to be a clergywoman does not mean we are not first a woman. To add to that, miscarriage is such a taboo topic-one in which we do not overburden others with our private grief. I find myself asking, 'why is that?' I mean, really, why is there this veil of secrecy and sometimes shame associated with miscarriage and infant death? There are so many women who experience this—and yet it is incredibly isolating.

For clergywomen I think, too, there is always the additional knowledge that we must not violate appropriate and healthy boundaries in our ministries-but I wonder sometimes if we take that too far. We, too, need the church to minister to us in a healthy way when we are hurting. We, too, need others to represent God to us in our sorrow. How can we have what we need if we do not ask for it and allow others to minister to us in the way in which we minister to others? I think we have to find a healthier balance in ministry-one in which we share these experiences so we too can experience the hope, nurture and love that God offers through God's people…

Next week, Shepastor will delve deeper into the interview with Joy and Tabatha in Part II of this series. Look for their insights on how the Church in general and clergywomen in particular can address perinatal loss in healthier ways. In Part II, they will also share words of wisdom on how clergywomen can care for themselves during this difficult experience.

You can read more from Joy and Tabatha by visiting their blog at www.chaplainhood.blogspot.com

Post a comment or send me an email at Shepastor1@hotmail.com

Until next Wednesday,
In Faith, Hope and Perseverance,
Pastor Chris
www.shepastorchris.org

Shepastor: "The Realities of Loss..."

The human spirit can endure a sick body, but who can bear a crushed spirit? Proverbs 18:4 NLT

Along life's journey, loss is inevitable. We experience many kinds of losses: loss of loved ones, relationships, positions, dreams, body parts, and so forth. Loss can “crush” the spirit.

One of the most tragic and painful losses, however, is the loss of a child. Statistics show that couples who lose a child are at higher risk for separation and or divorce. They are also at higher risk for depression, isolation, and other physiological and psychological maladies.

Harder yet may be the loss of an unborn child. Sadly, frequently, people minimize the pain women and their mates endure as a result of perinatal loss. Insensitive comments such as, “well, at least you didn’t get to know the baby,” or “well, at least you have other children,” or “ ‘it’ was not really a baby yet…” are not uncommon.

For clergy women, this grief is often hidden due to perceived and real pressure to "grin and bare" it as a "woman of faith."

The “call” does not exempt a woman from grief, anger, depression, and befuddlement. It can be even more complicated when the woman is a pastor. Over the next two weeks Shepastor will share insights about the "elephant" of perinatal loss and women clergy. A new book entitled Still a Mother: Journeys through Perinatal Bereavement, by Rev. Joy Freeman and Rev. Tabatha Johnson will soon be released by Judson Press. The interview shared in two parts will address this sensitive and important topic from the hearts of these authors who themselves have endured the pain of perinatal loss.

Here are a couple of quotes from the upcoming interview…

…Tabatha:

There's so much pressure to be clergy-to represent God, the church, our ministry. We can fall into a trap of feeling the need for perfection. I can't speak for my male colleagues, but I know as a clergywoman I feel the pressure to have everything together all the time-both at home and in ministry. It's hard, I think, to show how human we really are and that to be a clergywoman does not mean we are not first a woman…

…Joy:

Society in general and church specifically, I believe, are extremely uncomfortable discussing this matter...discussing the very intimate but painful details of medical processes that surround fertility issues and perinatal loss. There is very little understanding of what it means physically to experience this type of loss. The result can be a distinctly felt shaming of reproduction issues and difficulties that go along with them and so the personal challenge is dealt with in a very isolated manor…

Even if you have never experienced this kind of loss, you probably know women who have. Encourage them and others to “tune in” to the interview conversation over the next two weeks on Shepastor.

Post a comment or send me an email at Shepastor1@hotmail.com

Until next Wednesday,
In Faith, Hope and Perseverance,
Pastor Chris

Shepastor: "Addressing and Exposing Elephants in our lives: Highlights from the Addressing the Elephants in the Pew Women in Ministry Conference, 2015”

Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding, 14 for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. Proverbs 3:13-14 NIV

On the weekend of Friday, July 31st – August 1st, 2015 in Beachwood, Ohio, Women in ministry came together to deal with some “untouchable” topics. Women in ministry and depression, menopause, loneliness, jealousy, stress, burn out, worry, poor health, divorce, singleness, widowhood, marriage, dating and more!

We give God high praise for the marvelous things He did for us in "Addressing and Exposing" elephants in our pews, lives, ministries, relationships and our own hearts! God tremendously used our speakers, panelists and workshop leaders to usher us into the sweet presence of The Lord. We are grateful for the women who shared from the depths of their being, making themselves vulnerable so that others could receive their break through.

We were richly blessed by our Friday evening keynote speaker, Pastor Denise Cunningham-Doggett, who not only preached Heaven down, but gave each Conference Partner a special gift (beautiful “bejeweled” necklaces adorning elephants) and each conference participant a small bag of 5 colorful “smooth” stones, to remind us that we, like David can defeat our “Goliath/Elephants.” Our Saturday morning plenary speaker, Dr. Martina Moore (a licensed minister, psycho-therapist and CEO of a Christian counseling center) was greatly used by the Lord to decimate the elephants of “religiosity” in our lives. She boldly and skillfully called out the demons that can shackle our spirits when we continue to persist in self-denial.

While there are many more issues to be discussed amongst women in ministry regarding the “elephants” that hurt and hinder us in so different ways, we praise God for allowing us to at least begin this important and ongoing conversation. We are eternally grateful to the most-high God for allowing us to be used to have this conference.

Post a comment or send us an email at Shepastor1@hotmail.com

Until next Wednesday,
In Faith, Hope and Perseverance,
Pastor Chris
www.shepastorchris.org