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When You Lose Someone You Love: Comfort for Those Who Grieve

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This book was given to me by my best friend at the time of my mother's death. It was such a comfort to me, I read it several times in just a few short months. It helped me to better understand and cope with the feelings and emotions I was experiencing. The author used a lot of scriptures to show how God comforts us in our sorrow. I purchase this book and give it as often as the need arises.

I recently reviewed a book by a different author on my blog on the grieving process from a man's perspective and directed specifically to men. It mentioned practical ways for a man in grieving to take care of himself. I found it to be very informative and helpful to learn about and to help men cope with grieving in a healthy way. Being a woman, it took on even more importance.

Richard Exley's book, "When You Lose Someone You Love" is, to me, a deeper continuance of the previous book. It, too, is a man's perspective and directed to men, although this one could definitely be helpful for women as well.

Richard's book is written in letter form so he can "speak to you directly and in a very personal manner." His letters are in response to letters written to him. He claims, "Nothing I have written will take your pain away--only God can do that--but it will help you understand what you are experiencing, and how to get through it."

Chapters include (italics are my descriptions):

1. When Death Comes-initial moments to days after the funeral

2. Without Warning-unspeakable pain to tragic truth

3. The Truth About Grief-emptiness to encouragement

4. The Tides of Grief-unimaginable tidal waves to redemptive work of grief

5. The Pitfalls of Grief-temptation to pretend to wallowing in grief

6. The Promise of His Presence-questioning God's presence to Godly comfort

7. The Depth of His Love-can you trust God to God's love

8. If God Is for Us-senseless tragedy to redemption

9. In My Father's House-is there life after death to new life

Richard goes into great personal detail on each chapter subject, ministering, encouraging and empathizing. Each chapter also includes a prayer and Scripture reference pertinent to the subject handled. The prayers are so heartfelt that they minister straight to your heart. This is a very personal and intimate resource of great value for someone who has never been through the grieving process, bringing them back to a state of joy, or for someone who wants to minister to the grieving.

David C. Cook Publishing recently released When You Lose Someone You Love: Comfort for Those Who Grieve by Richard Exley. It's a collection of letters Richard Exley sent to a man who had lost a loved one, and was suffering in his grief. It's a very gentle approach to working through the grief, acceptance, and eventual peace with the loss.

When You Lose Someone You Love consists of nine letters each containing stories from the author's life, truths, and scripture references and end with the welcome promise of hope. Each letter reads like a conversation from a friend, touching, and gentle, just what someone who has suffered a great loss needs. Updated and revised, this twentieth anniversary edition features prayers and scripture meditation, as well as a new introduction and a very personal and touching epilogue about the author's own loss - the death of his father. The story gave me chills, and was a look into the author's heart.

I have suffered a lot of loss in my life, losing many loved ones over the years, both friends and family, some of them quite young, and many suddenly. I have learned my own way of dealing with the losses, starting with my father when I was a young child and the most recent being my grandmother, grandfather, and my cousin's young son all around the same time a year ago last summer. I've experienced deaths after a long illness, a short illness, accidents, and old age. No matter when you're loved one dies, the loss is substantial. When You Lose Someone You Love showed me some truths that I had not learned, some ways of looking at the loss and dealing with the grief that were needed for me. If you or someone you know has suffered a loss, this book will provide the comfort and help needed to get through the sorrow. I really liked that this is not a book about grief, but rather feels like comfort from a friend.

This book was sent to me by a cousin in NC (I live in ME) soon after the first anniversary of my husband's death. We had been married 50 1/2 years when he passed away. I was finding the beginning of the second year much harder than the first year had been, but this book helped me so much. I realized that I was 'normal' and not alone in feeling this way. I love the Christian aspect of this book, as you cannot go through hard times without faith. I have since purchased two copies to give to others I know who could benefit from it. I highly recommend it for newly widowed people, especially those who had been in long marriages.

Someone recommended this book when my brother died unexpectedly a month ago. I read it & then bought one for my sister and my mother. Also bought one for a friend who had just recently lost a son to suicide. Very comforting in a very difficult situation. Recommend to anyone who is grieving the loss of a loved on.

I bought this book for my Mother, my Dad passsed recently due to cancer. This book has helped her so much with the healing process of grieving. She has read it several times. And we have bought the book for others who have lost loved ones.

Grief is a truly powerful thing. "When You Lose Someone You Love: Comfort for Those Who Grieve" is a collection of inspirational and motivational texts from Richard Exley hoping to help those in the grieving process move on and settle their lives when it seems like there can be no tomorrow. Simply presented, "When You Lose Someone You Love" may be the comfort many need after the cruelty of life.

Do you have a friend who has been grieving a loss? You feel helpless and don't know what to do? This little book is a good resource to have on hand, for you to read to understand grief as well as helpful for the grieving friend. This compilation of "letters" to David are well written, short and to the point and very helpful for someone who is dealing with grief.
When I read this book I realized that this is something that is a universal thing, and not just with death. People do not know how to deal with grief. When I lost my great-grandfather, I was so upset. I cried straight for 3 days and someone told me, "It's enough." I am not sure that was the right thing to do as I still feel like it was never enough, but at least he said something. Some people avoid you or treat you like you have a plague. There was a quote in the book from C.S. Lewis that something like "I wonder if there should be a leper colony for the grieving." It feels that way when you see people hesitate to approach you as they are not sure if you will burst into tears and not know what to do or if they talk cheerily about their life, you hate them.
It was a great book to be giving to your friends who have lost someone and it is small so easy to mail instead of a card, this would be helpful and something that will comfort them.

When You Lose Someone You Love by Richard Exley is a short, perfect book for those grieving from a loss. Exley wrote this book eighteen years ago, and it has lost none of its impact or import. Framed as a series of letters to a man named David who has recently lost his beloved spouse, Exley addresses the different stages of grief, from numbness and shock to anger at God to the waves of grief that occur even two years after a loss. He encourages the reader not to ignore the more difficult questions that the death brings: why did God let it happen? how can a good God allow suffering? The book is thin, because what person grieving wants to read a long book, but it packs a powerful punch by focusing on what matters most and always inspiring the reader to turn to God, no matter what the emotion. There are short prayers at the end of each chapter that may help to soothe the soul as well. I know just who I will pass this book on to; it's the kind of book that will be passed from wounded soul to wounded soul, offering healing to each as it travels.

When you Lose Someone You Love, by Richard Exley, is a book about how to cope with the pain of grief and loss after a loved one dies. Written from a Christian perspective, the book is presented in a series of letters to a man named David, an anonymous person who represents people the author Richard Exley counseled through his career as senior pastor of churches in Colorado and Oklahoma. David asks questions and the author answers giving examples from other's experiences including his own, quoting from the Bible, offering support, compassion, empathy and understanding.

In the book When you Lose Someone You Love, the author effectively explains the grief process originally presented by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in Death and Dying. He discusses the grief and loss stages and quotes passages from the Bible supporting the parent who has lost a child, or the family who has to live with the choice a loved one made dying by suicide-deaths that don't make sense to those left behind.

The author reassures the reader that although the pain of grief may be more than a person can bear, there is hope if one turns towards God seeking comfort as he, the author did, when his baby sister died. He made sense of his pain and loss by turning towards "the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles," who offers the griever help with the despair and loneliness that accompanies grief. The author is by no means suggesting that God will take away the pain. On the contrary, grief is unavoidable, and he states correctly that it is part of the human condition to grieve. The author also believes that death, like illness, is the result of sin, and sin like grieving, is also part of the human condition. He suggests that the best way to heal after a loss is to walk through the shadow of the valley of death- in other words the only way out of pain is through the pain. In the process, one may find solace in God.

When you Lose Someone You Love, is an excellent book that discusses grief without minimizing the importance of walking through the process, the struggle to find meaning when someone we love has died. A good book for people of all faiths who are grieving, or who want to know more about the process and stages of grief.