Grief & Loss

Daily Devotions for Your Grief Journey can be used as a stand-alone devotional or part of the eight-week support and ministry program, Beyond the Broken Heart. In this program, author Julie Yarbrough chronicles her personal experience combined with a deep love of Scripture and years of leading grief support groups to create an authentic and deeply personal exploration of the grief journey.

"Julie Yarbrough has walked through the valley of the shadow of death and experienced the pain and anguish of great grief, and she knows firsthand the comfort and strength that only God can provide. I commend this remarkable grief ministry program to you highly."

James W. Moore, Pastor in Residence, Highland Park United Methodist Church, Dallas, Texas

"With wisdom informed by her own experience and a warm regard for those who grieve, Julie Yarbrough guides the brokenhearted on an honest journey toward acceptance and hope. A refreshingly excellent resource for grief support."

Stephan Bauman, Senior Minister, Christ Church New York City

"Julie Yarbrough weaves understanding, care, and comfort together in such a way that the seemingly intolerable becomes tolerable, one breath at a time. This resource provides everything you need to promote, establish, and conduct grief groups throughout the year."

Judith Bone, Director of Adult Discipleship, Brentwood United Methodist Church, Nashville, Tennessee

How does the heart understand grief when it is broken by the death of a loved one? To survive and live forward, those who grieve must find answers. Beyond the Broken Heart is an eight-week support and ministry program for those who are grieving the loss of a loved one. Author Julie Yarbrough chronicles her personal experience combined with a deep love of Scripture and years of leading grief support groups to create an authentic and deeply personal exploration of the grief journey.

The Small Group DVD contains eight video segments and two bonus sessions featuring the author and a licensed professional counselor. Each segment provides an introduction to the topic for the week while helping participants relate to the life experiences and stories of others who are familiar with the pain of loss and grief.

"Julie Yarbrough has walked through the valley of the shadow of death and experienced the pain and anguish of great grief, and she knows firsthand the comfort and strength that only God can provide. I commend this remarkable grief ministry program to you highly." --James W. Moore, Pastor in Residence, Highland Park United Methodist Church, Dallas, Texas

"With wisdom informed by her own experience and a warm regard for those who grieve, Julie Yarbrough guides the brokenhearted on an honest journey toward acceptance and hope. A refreshingly excellent resource for grief support." --Stephan Bauman, Senior Minister, Christ Church New York City

"Julie Yarbrough weaves understanding, care, and comfort together in such a way that the seemingly intolerable becomes tolerable, one breath at a time. This resource provides everything you need to promote, establish, and conduct grief groups throughout the year." --Judith Bone, Director of Adult Discipleship, Brentwood United Methodist Church, Nashville, Tennessee

Through their stories we come to appreciate the near-miraculous ways in which the dying communicate their needs, reveal their feelings, and even choreograph their own final moments; we also discover the gifts--of wisdom, faith, and love--that the dying leave for the living to share.

Filled with practical advice on responding to the requests of the dying and helping them prepare emotionally and spiritually for death, Final Gifts shows how we can help the dying person live fully to the very end.

When Ann Neumann's father was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, she left her job and moved back to her hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She became his full-time caregiver--cooking, cleaning, and administering medications. When her father died, she was undone by the experience, by grief and the visceral quality of dying. Neumann struggled to put her life back in order and found herself haunted by a question: Was her father's death a good death?

The way we talk about dying and the way we actually die are two very different things, she discovered, and many of us are shielded from what death actually looks like. To gain a better understanding, Neumann became a hospice volunteer and set out to discover what a good death is today. She attended conferences, academic lectures, and grief sessions in church basements. She went to Montana to talk with the attorney who successfully argued for the legalization of aid in dying, and to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to listen to "pro-life" groups who believe the removal of feeding tubes from some patients is tantamount to murder. Above all, she listened to the stories of those who were close to death.

What Neumann found is that death in contemporary America is much more complicated than we think. Medical technologies and increased life expectancies have changed the very definition of medical death. And although death is our common fate, it is also a divisive issue that we all experience differently. What constitutes a good death is unique to each of us, depending on our age, race, economic status, culture, and beliefs. What's more, differing concepts of choice, autonomy, and consent make death a contested landscape, governed by social, medical, legal, and religious systems.

In these pages, Neumann brings us intimate portraits of the nurses, patients, bishops, bioethicists, and activists who are shaping the way we die. The Good Death presents a fearless examination of how we approach death, and how those of us close to dying loved ones live in death's wake.