Journaling towards healing

Mar 01, 2024

By Marilyn Gerard
I recently participated in the fourth meeting of the Bereavement Support Group (BSG). This monthly session provides a safe space for widows and widowers to come together, sharing our coping mechanisms and supporting each other through the challenges of losing our spouses.

The topic for this session was Journaling Towards Healing. It began with a heartfelt prayer, acknowledging the profound pain of losing a husband, the intense anger, and the crippling fear of the unknown future that many participants were experiencing. Despite these challenges, the prayer expressed a deep faith in God’s presence, asking for His help to navigate through grief and to trust in His unseen work of mending our brokenness.

According to research, the loss of a spouse is often cited as the most emotionally wrenching of all losses, and it’s also considered the most challenging to overcome (Homes & Rahe, 1967; Henricks, 2017; Seiler, 2020).

When I was invited to share my journey of journaling, I initially accepted without much hesitation. However, when I sat down to gather my thoughts, I found it to be far more emotionally challenging than I had anticipated. Seeking guidance, I turned to online resources and came across various authors offering insights on journaling, predominantly from self-help and business perspectives. Dishearteningly, I found scarce literature reflecting the experience of losing a spouse.

Realising the inadequacy of these resources for my fellow widows, I felt a divine prompting to revisit my own extensive journal, which I’ve kept since the age of 13. It became clear to me that I had a wealth of personal insights and coping methods to offer, tailored specifically to our shared journey of loss and healing.

I must admit, Jesus gave me quite a challenge. As I delved into my journal spanning the 10 months since my husband, Paul Pretheban, passed away, I realised the profound role journaling played in navigating the depths of my grief. It became a means to articulate the most agonising moments of my life, capturing thoughts and feelings too complex to share with anyone else. In this journey of loss, there are times when even I struggle to comprehend myself amidst the overwhelming grief.

The loss of a beloved forever alters us; a piece of ourselves seems to depart with our loved one. Throughout my own grieving process, journaling became my lifeline. These methods I share are deeply personal, born from my own experiences, and thus, you won’t find them in any scholarly citations or references. They are raw and authentic excerpts from my own journals, offering a glimpse into my journey of healing.

After my sharing with the group, the members were given about 45 minutes to select any one journaling method that they would be most comfortable with, and write their stories in the notebooks prepared for them. Several members shared their raw grief and their journey of how they’re coping and that was truly inspiring. Others shared how this journaling session brought out the best in them by looking at their grief journey for the first time in writing. Our painful stories in the support group could serve as a survival kit to the many others who are also journeying in grief. As it states in Hebrews 2:18, “Because He Himself was tested through what He suffered, He is able to help those who are tested”.