Hi, and welcome to the Five Word Prayers Daily, a five-day-a-week daily devotional where we share the

word, prayers, and our heart. I'm Lisa Whittle, and I welcome you to just five minutes with me,

which I trust and pray will be five minutes well spent. So yesterday we talked about God breathing new

life into us, resurrecting the dead places. And if you haven't listened to the show,

I hope you'll go back and do that. I talked about my favorite story in all of the Bible. Truly it is.

Today is kind of a second part to that in some ways, at least for me, as yesterday marked the one-year

anniversary of my father going to heaven. So I've been walking through grief for the

past year, and really even before that in some ways, as I watched him for months slip from me,

which is a really difficult place to be. I know many of you can relate to the loss of someone

you love, and if you know of someone who has lost someone they love or gone through grieving,

or is going through

grieving. I really hope you'll recommend them listening to this show today on loss and grieving

and what to do with this difficult space. I've only done this one other time on the show, but as I prepare for it today, I really felt

like I couldn't say it any better than what I wrote a while back.

So I want to read you an excerpt from some bonus material, actually, that I wrote when I released

my book back in October Five Word Prayers.

It's not any material that's in the book.

It was available to those who pre-order the book, and the chapter was called,

Hold Me While I Grieve.

Here's what I wrote.

Sometimes I feel overcome by the depth of grief and loss in this world, and were it not for Jesus,

I would be swallowed up in my distress.

...