A Tender Conversation about Grief, Encouragement and Peace

Inside: Blogger Linda Stoll talks about reaching out to others with no hidden agenda and how God’s presence provides stability during the hardest transitions. Plus, what to do when we want to go to bed and stay there until 2024. ~

“Friendship … is born at the moment when one man says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought that no one but myself…’” ~ C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

This kind of friendship can develop over cups of coffee, side by side on the walking trail and even in the comment section of a blog. Today, I’m happy to be joined by Linda Stoll, a fellow-blogger-turned-friend who has been nurturing community in the blogosphere since 2008.

A retired Christian counselor, Linda lives with her husband on Cape Cod, Mass. She is passionate about her faith in Jesus and her six grandchildren—she describes “cheering them on from afar and banging on heaven’s door for their needs” as her most important work.

She recently moved her online home to Substack, where her Grace and Space newsletter lives up to its promise of being “a calm haven where you might catch your breath and be refilled.”

Our blogging paths first crossed in 2015, I think. Since then, Linda has become a wonderful source of encouragement in my life.

Today, you get to peek in on an email exchange we had over the last few weeks. Rather than give her a whole list of questions, I started with one—pulled directly from my life at the moment—and let the conversation flow from there.

It was a fun way to do an interview, and I hope you are as blessed by her thoughtful responses as I’ve been.

• • •

LOIS: We went to Spain the week before Thanksgiving and came home with Covid. I haven’t been able to exercise for a week, and the lack of endorphins is starting to wear on me. I probably won’t feel this way after a nice warm shower, but right now I want to quit everything—writing, blogging, Instagram community, housekeeping, you name it.

To add insult to injury, my husband, who has Covid too, can’t taste anything, so neither of us have had dessert in more than a week.

I know God is with me. I know this too shall pass. But part of me also wants to go back to bed and stay there until 2024.

If you were sitting across the table from me right now, what would you tell me?

LINDA: Oh gosh, Lois, I am so sorry. Covid is such a beast and what a disappointment after that long-awaited trip. I don’t blame you for wanting to toss everything right out the window. Sure makes sense to me.

Please take the pressure off yourself to try to do business as usual. All those things you’re talking about can wait. I like what you said about a nice warm shower.

No need to plan out the week or the month. Maybe just one half day at a time? A hope-full question to consider—“how can I be kind to myself?”

I hope you can get outside for a simple 5-minute walk. The fresh air and even a bit of movement invites those endorphins to come out of hiding.

And yes please to a little dessert. And doing whatever brings peace to your soul. He meets us with a quiet kindness in these desolate places. He whispers, “Peace, be still.”

LOIS: Aw, Linda … your words are a balm for me, as they have been to so many others over the years. Tell me, has encouragement—especially via the written word—always come so naturally for you?

LINDA: Right off the top I’ll say, “No way.” I am by nature self-absorbed, a glass half-full person, a whiner. I own that. So anything good I am or have to offer is only because of God’s grace working overtime in my life.

It might sound pious but it’s the truth.

All that said, I do believe that we often give to others what we inwardly crave for ourselves. It’s not at all a conscious thing. But if our love language is words of affirmation, it’d be no surprise that we offer encouragement, sometimes lavishly, in order to get our own yearnings met.

My mom had a huge ministry of encouragement via the written word … cards, notes, poems. These beautifully crafted little masterpieces faithfully arrived in mailboxes for many years and impacted countless people with the gentle, lovingkindness of Jesus.

Again, it’s only when we find our identity and deepest needs met in Christ that we can reach out to others with no hidden agenda.  Praise God that He does this for us as we open ourselves to His endless love.

LOIS: My mom had the same kind of ministry as yours, though it’s one of many things about her that I didn’t fully appreciate until well after she died. Are there things about your mom or dad that you have come to appreciate more since they went to heaven?

LINDA: This sounds awful, but I can’t say that there’ve been any new revelations. I spent a lot of time with Mom in her final years and there were long, hard stretches in there to reflect, process, and deepen my appreciation for their lives, their faith, their legacies.

It was an exhausting season filled with a deeply felt anticipatory grief that drained me dry but left me with no regrets.

LOIS: I don’t think that sounds awful, Linda—what a huge blessing to have no regrets. I always expected to lose my parents like you did; first one, then the other years later. Instead, they died within five weeks of each other, after an intense and unexpected season of decline.

I’ve often wondered why it had to happen this way for our family, and the answer always comes from the Narnia quote hanging above my kitchen sink: “I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.”

What do those powerful words mean to you, at this time of your life?

LINDA: I’ve learned that the story God has written for me is uniquely mine. No need to compare, be envious or judge where another soul finds herself. When all is said and done, I am confident that He judges justly with lovingkindness and great wisdom. All will be well. This truth gives me a lovely peace.

LOIS: That kind of peace is truly what anchors us during life’s devastating storms, isn’t it? If I’m remembering correctly, your father died suddenly shortly after you moved to be closer to your parents. How did that experience change you? Did working through the shock and loss prepare you at all for what the coming years held (the pandemic, your mom’s slow decline and death, etc.)?

LINDA: Dad died the day after we moved from New York to Cape Cod. Although he wasn’t in the best of health, it was sudden and unexpected. In fact, we had made the quick decision to move here because his mind was getting a bit fuzzy and we wanted to live nearer to them.

It was like he said, “OK, God, they’re here now—Mom’s in good hands,” and he keeled over as he was cleaning up the kitchen after a steak dinner. Really. When we saw his body a few hours later in the hospital, I remember crying out, “But Daddy, we just got here.” I thought we’d have a longer season with him.

Yes, it was a shock and a terrific loss.

I learned a whole lot about transitions during the months that followed. The move from New York after living there for 38 years. Leaving long-time friends and the counseling ministry I loved. Acclimating to a new way of life, a different culture, trying to fit in at church. And then our little grandson died suddenly.

But that’s a whole other story and not mine to tell. Bottom line is that I’ve lost eight loved ones in the eight years we’ve lived here. The cost to my emotional health has been high, but God has remained ever-present and faithful to me through anxiety and depression and everything that came with the grieving and the pandemic and all the things.

I’ve learned that He is the Redeemer of all our sorrows and specializes in restoring “the years the locusts have eaten” (Joel 2). The work I’ve been able to do in the last few years has been rich, joyful and rewarding. Writing online and ministry at church have saved my life. I find myself in a sweet spot in this season. I’m grateful.

LOIS: I’m grateful too, Linda … for your writing ministry and your friendship. Thanks for sharing your heart with us today.

• • •

Friends, if you’ve been encouraged by Linda’s story, feel free to leave her a message in the comments. She shares powerfully about grief in this post. And be sure to check out more of her writing at her new online home, Grace and Space. You’ll be glad you did.

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with #tellhisstory, InstaEncouragements, Let’s Have Coffee and Grace & Truth.

Photos provided by Linda Stoll