Ep 23: Thankful Looks Different After Grief

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But really, we truly had such a beautiful life. And now suddenly I'm alone. I'm widowed. My girls are fatherless. We've lost our provider. And somehow I have to pick up all of these shattered pieces and carry on. Devastating.

Would you show some love to Curtis this morning?

Well, good morning everybody. I appreciate you having me back. Some of you don't know me and, um, that's okay. We're, we're going to get to know each other quick. Um, Pastor Zach called me about five, six weeks ago and said, Hey, will you come share the Sunday before Thanksgiving? And he gave me the mantra. He said, thankful looks different.

I said, do you know my story? And I thought, okay. And I said, well, give me a couple of days and I'll get back to you and let you know if I can do this. And I immediately had two thoughts. Um, the first one was, and many of us have experienced this, [00:01:00] it's that, it's that day when you sit down at Thanksgiving and you look around and man, your family's there, your kids are there.

If you're older, maybe your grandkids are there, right? Mom and dad's there, some aunts and uncles. There's a pile of food on the table. Your house might be decorated for Christmas if you're one of those people, but, but ultimately there's this heart of Thanksgiving and I've experienced Thanksgivings like that where I literally walked in the room and just felt so full.

It was such a good day. But then, I had another thought. I thought, man, what about Paul? Paul's sitting in prison right into the churches. Ephesus, Philippi, and he's chained. He's been spit on, he's been persecuted, humiliated. You know, we hear about bullying a lot these days. Nothing compared to what Paul went through, right?

And I, and I, then I began to think about the words that he uses in his letters. I'm thankful for you. And he says it in such a way that I feel the same thankfulness. You know, when I walk in [00:02:00] to that room on Thanksgiving day and you feel so grateful and thankful, and if you listen to Paul's words, he's expressing that kind of gratitude towards the church.

And he uses words like praise and rejoice. And I think to myself, how do you do that? Right? How do you do that? Two different circumstances. Then I can't help, but look at a room like this and know that we've had some Thanksgivings we didn't want to be at. Right? The rug got pulled out. Our world's been flipped upside down.

And how am I grateful? I'm not gonna lie. I've had some Thanksgivings like that. I love my family, but I just want them to all go away. Like I just, I wanted to get through the day. It was one of those years, right? And then I think of Thessalonians. Paul writes to us. He says, Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God for you.[00:03:00]

How do you do that? Yeah, how do you do that? For those of you who don't know my story, I came about six months ago, and um, Um, September of 2022, My dear wife, she's beautiful, she's healthy, She's godly, she's all the things you want in a wife, right? And, uh, she's a mother of five. In September of 22, she gets diagnosed with bone marrow cancer, enamelidosis, and from the day she got diagnosed till the day she died was four weeks.

Our world was flipped upside down. Yeah, that Thanksgiving was hard, right? And so when Zach says, Hey, come back and talk to that, my congregation about thankful looks different, it looks different. And I can't help but be reminded. Of what Paul was going through as he's writing these letters. And what many of you, I'm not, I'm no stranger, you know, you're no stranger to grief.

Many of you in here have [00:04:00] experienced these kinds of things, right? I get that part. You know, I was, um, I was laying in bed for like three months, 20 hours a day, just grieving my muscles, my muscles. They were just worthless. They atrophied. And I got to thinking about, you know, Thankfulness is not a, it's not a, it's not just a feeling.

It's not just an emotion. It's a command. The scripture in Thessalonians says, be thankful in all things for it's the will of God. It's a command. It's a discipline. It's a muscle. And that's what I thought of as we were preparing for the message today was that, you know, on those days you're sitting at Thanksgiving and everything's amazing.

Like that's a lightweight, right? Oh, it's so easy to be grateful. But then when times are tough, that weight is heavy, it's heavy. And Paul says, be grateful, be thankful in all circumstances. You know, I laid in bed and I had to actually get [00:05:00] medical help. I had to call the doctor, I had to call a chiropractor, I had to get physical therapy just to get back on my feet.

I'm a different person today. That was two years ago, October 9th. Last month we celebrated two years, that was two years ago, but I'm a different person today with a lot of help and a lot of prayer, God has enabled me to get back on my feet, grateful, thankful, looks different today, looks different today.

Something else you may not know is that, um, Michal, my wife Michal, it was a second marriage, long story, but um, mother of five, and uh, the day we, we buried her and walked away from the funeral, four of those kids got in a vehicle and I never thought I'd see them again. Okay. Those four kids are sitting right here this morning

for a guy I'd never talked to before the funeral, God, and hundreds of people prayed. And can you believe that guy is my friend today? We're [00:06:00] raising four kids together, five kids together. And, um, they're here with me today. I can stand before you today and say, thankful looks different. It looks different.

And, um, about a year ago. So, crazy thing happened. Some former students of mine came to me and said, Curtis, we want to help you tell your story. We want to help tell the story of your wife, Michal. You see, those four weeks, the kids and I, my, my wife, Michal, just kind of, she flipped the script. She poured into us.

We were broke. And she said, it's my time to go. It's okay. Go cry. Beg God, do whatever you can, but don't, don't turn away from him. Don't get bitter over this. But allow God to do a deep work. And she told us this, she said, run right into the heart of this and let God do a work. And my wife on her deathbed said, do this so that one day when somebody else is hurting, when somebody else is broke, God's already done a work in your [00:07:00] life and you can jump right into their hurt and do the same thing for them.

Those were just words to me back then, but today they're meaningful. That was my wife. And so these guys come to me and they say, Curtis, we want to help tell your story. We want to help share the gospel, share the message that Michal left with you and with the family. And so they, they said, let's start a podcast.

I'm like, I don't listen to a podcast. Why would I do that? They're like, that's what everybody does today. That's how people communicate. That's how people are spreading the word. I was like, okay, I'll, I'll try. I didn't think it was any good. I didn't like any of it. And, um, you know that crazy thing, it's been six months now and, um, thousands of people have tuned into that thing.

We get messages almost daily. It's given people a space like me to share and to grieve and to just be able to get help. We're pointing people to Jesus and offering hope. It's the craziest thing ever. Well, I brought [00:08:00] one of those podcast listeners with me today. It's the craziest story. But back in June, back in June, I get a message from a woman who says, Thank you for what you're doing.

My brother sent me a link. Luke, raise your hand. Yeah, raise your hand. He's shaking his head. I didn't even know Luke was listening to this thing. I'm just, I'm a griever, guys. I'm just pouring my guts out online, of all things, right? Just sharing the story. And Luke sends his grieving sister, A link to this podcast and I get this message that says, thank you for what you're doing.

It's got to be hard. I can't believe you're even doing it. And we start this, this friendship and to be honest with you, we just became grieving buddies. We really did. We made it perfectly clear that we weren't, we weren't interested in each other. We didn't want to date. Like we literally said those words.

I hope you don't think anything extra because this is just about us crying together, laughing together, [00:09:00] sharing together. But once you know it, God had different plans, like he always does. You guys have a, have a saying in this church, it's your mantra, Jesus changes everything. Yeah.

About four weeks into this friendship, we're grieving buddies, God just swept over the two of us. It was in about 24 hours. She called me one day and she says, did you feel that? And I was like, you know, cause we're the ones, we're like, we're not interested in each other. And I was like. Yeah, what did you feel?

Like neither one of us wanted to tell each other what had happened. Man, God just swept over the two of us.

We're still grieving buddies. We still cry. We still laugh. We're [00:10:00] trying to figure this out together. We got a bunch of kids. God's, God's got to work out a lot of details. Um,

but I wanted her to share some of her story today. And just share what God is doing in her life and what two people, regardless of what they've been through, when they say yes to Jesus, you can see what God can do. So Crystal, would you please welcome? It's so weird. I'm 55 years old, but would you please welcome my girlfriend to the stage?

Thanks, Curtis. It's kind of weird being introduced by your boyfriend. I'm not going to lie. But thank you, Pastor Zach, for inviting Curtis and I to speak with your church today. It's honestly a real honor and privilege to be here with all of you this morning. So [00:11:00] good morning! Um, what Pastor Zach probably didn't know, this is my very first time preaching.

So, go ahead and give me all your grace and share your grievances with him. I'm pretty sure I can get you a phone number and email, um, for just even putting a rookie up here, but, um, no, in all seriousness, Zach, thank you for honestly pushing me to get my story out. Um, and really, honestly, guys, other than Jesus, pretty much everyone in the Bible is actually pretty messed up.

We know this, right? So when you start with a bunch of messy people, I found out that I actually fit in quite well. Um, and God uses broken people over and over and over again, and it's through their stories that they help others. [00:12:00] So I'm here to share some of my story with you as broken and as messy as it may be in hopes that I'm going to encourage you.

So it is the week of Thanksgiving. And what does that look like? We're probably busy getting our turkeys ready, getting our tables ready, bringing our guests in and our family in. But what does Thanksgiving really actually mean? So I did what most Americans would do. I turned to Google, um, and I, I Googled Thanksgiving.

And so the definition of Thanksgiving is the expression of gratitude, especially to God. I was shocked. So I did what most of us do on the internet. I went down a little rabbit trail and I looked up gratitude. So then the definition of gratitude is just thanks and appreciation. So we have Thanksgiving, which we know [00:13:00] is gratitude to God.

So we know that this thanks and appreciation is to God. So then I took it one step further and I looked up the word praise and praise is to give thanks. Thanks to, it's the expression of respect and gratitude as an act of worship to give praise to God. To be honest, I was a little floored that Google defined Thanksgiving as an act of worship, pointing it right back to God, rather than Google defining Thanksgiving, as most of us know of turkeys and football.

So how do you define Thanksgiving? And what does Thanksgiving and gratitude look like right in the middle of devastation and pain? And that's where I'm bringing you into my story. But first, if [00:14:00] you guys would just pray with me, God, we welcome you here. Come Jesus, just put power on this message. Just God, meet us where we are, in your name we pray, Amen.

Alright, just let me quickly tell you my story. About a year and a half ago, my incredible husband Brandon suddenly and tragically passed away. I have two daughters who are here with me today. It's Olivia and Madison. Um, at the time they were 10 and 11 years old. So in an instant, suddenly life was never going to be the same.

My husband Brandon had a rare blood cancer and after going through just a really brief illness and a bone marrow transplant where we literally moved into the hospital for a brief time, um, he had just reached the point actually after the transplant [00:15:00] where actually everything looked okay and we had made it through the treatment.

We kind of took that breath, we came home from the hospital and we finally got to be together as a family again. All he had to do was recover, get his strength back, and he was headed back to work. Hallelujah, we made it. But then suddenly, honestly, something tragically went wrong. And the doctors came and told us he was not going to survive.

They did everything, they were scrambling and when I say everything scrambling, I'm talking doctors from across the nation throwing a plan to throw at him to save him and buy him some time. But ultimately the doctors told me, my kids were at school and they said go get your girls and we had just hours to say goodbye.

And just three days later, he took his last breath [00:16:00] in my arms.

My life prior to losing my husband, it honestly was that life that most of us dream of. I had that picture perfect life. I had a handsome husband who completely adored me. I had a loving and faithful marriage, beautiful kids, great friends, great jobs, a beautiful home, a dog, a cat, the white picket fence.

I'm not joking about the white picket fence. I'm from New Albany.

But really, we truly had such a beautiful life. And now suddenly I'm alone. I'm widowed. My girls are fatherless. We've lost our provider. And somehow I have to pick up all of these shattered pieces and carry on. [00:17:00] Devastating. At my husband's funeral. They read the famous passage that honestly most of us can recite by heart.

Psalm 23 verses 1 through 4. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

So as my journey through grief began, those early days were completely brutal. I grieved so hard and so deep that my body actually physically ached. I cried [00:18:00] continuously. In fact, I even cried sounds that were unrecognizable coming out of my own body as I literally wailed in pain. I lost my ability to speak for days.

And when my voice actually finally came back, my brain couldn't even remember the words. And so I mumbled and garbled my words for weeks. My body literally went through a state of shock. The first verse in Psalm 23, He makes me lie down. God made me lie down. I sat in my tears and accepted the pain of what I was feeling.

I honestly initially welcomed that pain because the pain of what I was feeling in comparison to losing the closest person on this earth to me felt justified. [00:19:00] I was okay feeling a deep rip in my heart. And during that immense pain I found that I actually reflected on just the beautiful love story that my husband and I had.

God had blessed me with such a precious gift when he gave me the amazing husband that Brandon was to me. He loved me so well. And during those days of being muted and God making me lie down, I sat in silence and I experienced the closeness of Jesus, almost as if I could literally physically feel Jesus sitting right there with me.

I did something in, in those days called box breathing prayers. I prayed Jesus's name over me for hours. I actually brought. I brought the book with me [00:20:00] about box breathing prayers. Um, and I don't know if you guys know what box breathing is, or box breathing prayers, but I'm just going to take a minute and just quickly teach it to you.

Because I don't know what's ahead for you guys, but I hope you remember this. So that one day if you need to box breathe prayer, you'll know how to do it. But when you box breathe, it's a box, right? You inhale in on a count of four, you hold it, you exhale out on a count of four, and you hold it, and you repeat inhale, exhale.

So when you box breathe prayer, you add a prayer to each of the inhale and exhale. And I just did it in my head, I didn't do it out loud because I couldn't breathe and Pray together could barely do anything. . Um, but the easiest one [00:21:00] for me, those early days when I was completely speechless, was just the name of Jesus.

And I would breathe in and in the my head I would be like Jesus, and I would hold it and I would exhale and pray to Jesus. Then my second favorite one was Jesus's name, Yahweh. I would breathe in ya and I would exhale away over and over and over. I prayed this way for weeks, even months. I didn't have words to pray, but I could pray Jesus' name.

I was speechless, but I could breathe out. Jesus. There's power in the name of Jesus, there's healing in the name of Jesus. There's life. In the name of Jesus, He leads me beside still waters. [00:22:00] He restores my soul. As I grieved the scripture, the words literally jumped off of the page of my Bible and came alive to me.

I needed the still waters because I still needed a drink. But with all the chaos going on around my Life at that time, I could only take in stillness. I understood for the first time in my life what it meant to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The shadow of death. Death brings about a darkness and a shadow that lingers.

The sun slips away behind the clouds and leaves darkness. And while I was in this darkness, the shadow of death, I couldn't escape from the tragedy that I was going through. God met [00:23:00] me in my devastation and pain. Psalm 34 verse 18 says the Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

He was near, he was very near. Losing my husband and feeling the pain like I've never experienced before, I knew I could grieve in one of two ways that I had a choice. I could grieve walking towards restoration and healing, or I could remain stuck where I was, wrecked and broken. So I made a choice that I was going to start to grieve well.

I made a choice to refocus my lens and with me refocusing my lens, I began to magnify and focus in on the goodness of God, despite the devastation happening around me. I could see the [00:24:00] goodness of God, despite the fact that my life had been flipped upside down. My world shattered. I could see God working.

Experienced little miracles over and over and over again, almost daily. Every day, I could point to at least one thing that was showing to me God's provision for me, His faithfulness to me. He was using others to show up on my behalf. He began revealing to me his plan that was ahead of me that was so intricately being placed, put in place, months before my husband even got sick.

I could start to see things that did or did not happen because God was preparing for what was ahead for me. And this began opening my eyes. I And how God was caring for me and my girls and leading us down a path that [00:25:00] I couldn't have ever imagined. He was preparing the way for me and I just had to grab those two little girls hands and follow him.

Beautiful things were happening even in the midst of my suffering. I had a really close friend come up to me and tell me that God put a really strong burden on her and her husband's heart. And they wanted to come alongside me and my girls and carry us through. And that family has shown up time and time and time again.

I couldn't get out of bed some days because God made me lie down. And her husband was in my backyard mowing the lawn. And her little kids were in their kitchen cutting up vegetables and preparing a meal for us. And you guys, you don't know. Our family, the Berman family, we eat weird. We're not normal. So that was a challenge [00:26:00] and they took it on.

I had numerous people randomly send me text messages or mail me cards telling me I was heavy on their heart and they were praying for me that day. And I would honestly typically receive these messages on days where I was at my lowest and felt the loneliest. God sees me, God sees you, He loves me, He loves you, He's so near to the brokenhearted.

Even during suffering and pain, we can choose to still see the goodness of God. We can choose to walk in faithfulness through this. And as I began to walk. Through the valley of the shadow of death, the key word was walk. It was right foot, left foot. [00:27:00] I knew I couldn't stay there and that I had to walk forward.

So I began worshiping and listening to scripture. And I'm going to pause for just a second and tell you what I mean by listening to scripture. Because I knew I needed. To hear God's word, I knew I needed to pee in my Bible. But when you cry and cry for months, my eyes were so blurry and so out of focus from a never ending stream of tears that I couldn't even see the words in my Bible.

Like I couldn't read, I couldn't see. And my brother that Curtis pointed out that's here today, my brother Luke. He shared this thing with me, that you can put this thing called an app on your phone, put the Bible there, and they read it [00:28:00] to you.

But guys, seriously, in this day and age of technology that we have, if you're not physically reading your Bible, give yourself permission to hear it, and listen to it. Because we need to be in the truth of the Word of God. Because it's in the Word of God that you actually begin to see His character. And nothing can shake us when we are rooted in Christ.

When we study His Word, we find more and more about Him, to praise Him, even in our devastation. And we discover more and more about his greatness and how his greatness is so much more than our greatest pain or hurt. [00:29:00] When you have God's word inside of you, even when you face the unthinkable, you can press on.

You can refocus your lens and see God at work. When we refocus, And we can see God's goodness, God's faithfulness, God's provision, his character. Seeing all these things allowed me in my time to hold on to hope that God can and will restore me. He makes me lie down. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul and he brings that same hope to every single one of us.

So I'm going to close us out today by reading some of those scriptures of truth. Psalm 59 verse 16 But I will sing of your strength in the [00:30:00] morning I will sing of your love for you are my fortress my refuge in times of trouble Psalm 112 verse 4 Light dawns in the darkness for the upright. He is gracious, merciful, and righteous.

Psalm 119, verse 105. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I was in the darkness, guys. This was a light. When the righteous, Psalm 34, verse 17 through 18, when the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

Psalm 63, chapter 7 through 8. For you have been my help. And in the shadow of your wings, I will sing for joy. [00:31:00] My soul clings to you. Your right hand upholds me. Psalm 46, verse 10. Be still and know.

Second Corinthians, chapter 1, verses 3 through 4. Praise be to the God and the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father of compassion and the God of all comfort. who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. Isaiah 41, chapter, verse 10.

So do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous reign. [00:32:00] With this truth of His Word, how can we not be thankful during suffering? Because we know He is good, He is faithful, and He is with

you.

Because of this promise, I chose thankfulness.

I still choose thankfulness. Thankfulness to a God who is gracious. And merciful and righteous and who already has the path ahead of me, that could not have done this walk through the valley without Jesus. And you may not have lost your spouse, but you might be facing a valley. It might be a relationship loss.

It might be a job loss, maybe financial troubles. Maybe you're walking alongside a close person going through [00:33:00] addiction. I don't know what trial you're facing, but if you know Jesus, He can get you through that trial. And if you don't have gratitude in the worst spaces of your life, I encourage you to get to know Him more.

And Let him come into your life and take over your pain and your brokenness and give you hope, give you peace and give you thanksgiving and gratitude that's so strong you can't help but throw up your hands and worship him.

Well, thank you for having us today. I appreciate it. And we do have, it's not easy stuff, but it's what God's given me. You know, Wendell, I didn't know if I'd ever [00:34:00] do ministry stuff again. I really didn't know. And of all things, right? Of all things, to use this thing to, uh, be able to serve and to point people to Jesus and give them hope.

It's been, it's RunToTheHeart. com. And, um, Crystal's parents and family, her brother's here today, but they're from all over the country. Uh, there's some in Florida today, Mississippi or Louisiana. And, uh, some of her friends are here today. And, um, The kids and I had something totally planned, and they don't even know about this.

But I thought, man alive, we got a church, we got family online, we got some of our friends and some of our family here. And the other morning I woke up and I said, Zach, can we do it? He was like, let's go.[00:35:00]

Krista Berman. Can we just make this official? We talk about it every day, you guys. Like, we talk about it every day. And we're like, what's God gonna do? And how's he gonna do this? And, and the kids don't know about this. I literally, we have a plan for Thanksgiving, and I didn't tell them. I was like, you know what?

We're just gonna surprise everybody. I did tell mom and dad. You can wave at them. They're online. Mom and dad know. Will you marry me? Let's go. Woo!

I don't know what God's doing. We just keep saying [00:36:00] yes. And every day we wake up and we just keep saying yes.

We're two grieving buddies. We still are. Some days she has to pull the cart. Some days I have to pull the cart. Our spouses were amazing.

And I know that sounds weird, but welcome to our world. This is just the world we live in. I'm grateful for this woman, and we're gonna, we're gonna figure this out with God's help.

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