Grief support program will begin sessions early February

GriefShare is a biblically based international program that helps people grieving the loss of a loved one.

Locally Debbie Lyons is a facilitator of a group starting in the beginning of February.

"GriefShare walks you through each week with different activities with different lessons," Lyons said. "The videos are amazing from people with heartfelt passion about how their grief felt."

Before the first meeting a 'Loss of a Spouse' seminar will take place Sunday, Feb. 2nd at 2 p.m.

This seminar will be a two hour session specifically for those who have lost a spouse and is struggling moving forward. 

The GriefShare sessions begin at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 6, at Brookdale Presbyterian Church, located at 203 S. 31st Street in St. Joseph, Missouri. Their is no cost and the program is donation funded.

A second session will be held at 6 p.m. that Thursday evening at the same location. All the facilitators have gone through the program before. Lyons spoke about the most important part of the program.

"Learning to get your joy back because when you are in the dark hole of grief, you don't think life will ever be anything," Lyons said. "You don't think you can laugh, you don't think you can meet with people, you can't talk to people. All you want to do is cry and stay in a hole."

She said teaching people moving forward and 'taking our loved ones with us" is a focus. 

"We encourage them that it's okay to laugh, to be happy," Lyons said. "Because the person or persons they lost would want them to move forward."

Grief is different for everyone and GriefShare plans to provide videos and books from experts to help get through questions and unknown feelings some may have.

"I always promise my groups they will find their joy if they do the grief work," Lyons said. "Grief work is hard, it's not something you can do for one second... I still learn new things when I hear the videos and read the books."

To enroll, go to griefshare.org.