Every once in a while there is a series that resonates with me and worth recommending so others can watch.

Going home is one such series as it is filled with stories of people who in the aftermath of their end of life diagnosis are processing pain they never shared with anyone in life.

In this episode, Randall is a former viet nam war veteran who was terribly traumatized by images seeing people die.One image he could not get out of his mind was the death of a boy in the deep jungles of Vietnam. "The mother of that boy would never again see her son", he lamented to the hospice nurse.

At one point, Randall was homeless. His grown daughter, Deb, brought her dad into her home where his nightly rituals of flashbacks got to the point where he would wake up and instantly throw things at the imaginary enemy.Deb could no longer care her dad that she bought him to a home to care for him.

Randall developed 4th stage cancer with no cure on the horizon and was brought to the Sunrise hospice program. It was in this program that the lead RN was able to win the trust and respect that enabled him to open up for the first time about the pain he never told anyone. It was as though the dam had broken, ushering decades of repressed tears into the open freeing his body of those toxins.

Although it is unhealthy, it is normal for people to want to bury their emotions deep down inside after the loss of a loved one. "I don't want to talk about " becomes the common reframe for most. For some who go decades avoiding the expression of their pain, drugs and alcohol become their 'friends'. For others, the repression of their emotional pain causes their bodies to develop various cancers and other health maladies. For Randall it was his 4th stage diagnosis that brought him to Sunset hospice.

When I think about grief share I see this as a safe community where people can come and share their story, some for the very first time. I've watched people shed a flood gate of tears when they share their pain, but with those tears, healing eventually comes. Each time they share, I notice it becomes a less daunting task for them to do so.

When Jesus came into the world, he came to die for each one of us, to whisper sweet encouraging things into us by way of the holy spirit. Like the nurse in Going home, we are to learn to listen to bereaved people, not to judge them, or give them silly platitudes.

Toward the end of this episode after Randall began talking about the death of this boy, he met his daughter for the first time. She asked him to come to her wedding. The staff of the hospice program got him dressed up in his Marine dress uniform he hadn't worn in decades and wheeled him to the gathering room where his daughter was marrying another Marine.

There is a verse in the bible that states that God makes all things new. In the 10 years I helped facilitate grief share God has shown me many ways how He makes all things new in the participants who come to griefshare.

If you only had money for one streaming service, I recommend the Great American Pureflix. As you watch the episodes of Going home, I know you will see the importance of openly expressing your emotions when life throws a curve ball and you lose a loved one.

In the event of such loss, I recommend you participate in a griefshare near you. It was in 2007 when I lost my 10 year old daughter that I began having flashbacks and nightmares that would cause me to awaken suddenly in the wee hours of the morning trying to second guess all of the decisions we made for her regarding her orthopeadic surgery. It wasn't until I started journaling and telling my story over again to trusted listeners that my flashbacks and nightmares diminished.

I urge you if you are battling issues like this from your sudden losses to cry out to God and express your pain to him. You will be glad you did.

The loss of a child is a long and often times painful process. It is a process that requires people to support them.

As this man testifies, the loss of a child is a profound and intense loss of which he was not able to do on his own. He shares the story of losing his 5 year old son and the cataclysism of emotions he traveled through until he felt normal again. He shared how therapists and close friends that helped him all along the way of his journey.

He was right when he shared how difficult it was to find honest videos done by men after the loss of a child. They are hard to find because men find it hard to talk about their emotions after a traumatic loss. Statistically, men are more apt to venture into alcohol and drug use before they show up at the doorstep of a therapist or groups like grief share.

In the 10 years that I have help facilitate Grief share I can attest to the fact that the groups are filled with mostly grieving woman with a small handful of men. The men who did come to grief share and completed all of their lessons recovered at a much faster pace than the ones who stayed away while their wives attended.

The reality after the loss of a child ( at any age) is that it will take at least 10 years to recover from such a loss and the reality if men choose to isolate while going from depression to anger back to depression is that they will likely display serious health symptoms requiring medical intervention. After the loss of my 10 year old daughter, Maria, I sought out a trauma therapist to help me with the intial shock and anger of the loss. Once this was completed, I joined my wife to participate in Grief share. The combination of these two things made all of the difference in my world.

We have a God who sent his son, Jesus, into the world to help us heal from our losses by walking along side us through the entire journey. He also uses groups like Griefshare.org to help with the healing process by introducing people to us who experience similar losses as ours in an evironment where we feel safe to share our emotional pain.

God is in business of healing broken people

The loss of a loved one can profoundly effect us in unique ways. For some, it can lead to shock as we grapple with the 'why did this have to happen to me?' We search for someone to blame for our loss, a loss that we never envision would happen to us.

If the loss is with a child, the loss is profound and deep which often takes up to 10 years before we start feeling normal again.

Then, you have the family dynamics following the loss. Some are instantly processing their pain while others are bitter and angry choosing to point fingers toward the primary care giver thinking they must have done something to cause the loved one to die.

When we lose a loved one we come to the proverbial fork in the road of life. Choosing the right path will either set the survivor on the recovery road while choosing the wrong path will lead them down a road filled with more anger and various addictions of which may cause dangerous health conditions to surface. I would like to say that most would choose the right path, but sadly, statistics remind me that most will make every effort to bury their grief while substituting alcohol, drugs, gambling and other addictions into the equation.

There is hope and that is Grief share. This is a 13 week group that teaches people how to grieve while encouraging them to have daily devotions using the 'From mourning to joy' exercises. When you read God's word from Genesis through Revelation the common theme you will find is 'Grief'. It is a reminder that life isn't always going to be a happy and delightful. It is a reminder that Jesus came into the world to walk with broken people and to guide them until recovery is reached. Griefshare is one such tool to help guide broken people.

Going home is a new series about stories of people who are dying and the survivors who carry on. Grief share is highlighted in several of the episodes.