Lose, Love, Live. Dan Moseley
What Others Are Saying about Lose Love Live
If you have experienced a loss and are looking for a spiritual companion rather than a fix, then you have found an answer to prayer in Dan Moseley and this book. He speaks with the authority of a fellow pilgrim who knows a subject from the inside. My Clinical Pastoral Education students have found it an excellent resource to help them “get with” people in their grief.
Dr. James R. Coffman
A CPE Certified Supervisor
Methodist Healthcare System
Memphis, Tennessee
Loss of a significant loved one threatens our world as we see and experience it, which can lead to serious questioning of one’s faith. Dr. Moseley deals with these questions openly and honestly in a manner intended to lead to a new life and deepening of one’s faith.
Dr. Moseley’s integration of his years of pastoral experience and seminary teaching has resulted in a practical understanding of grieving and a gentle guide through the “valley of the shadow of death” into a new and unexpected life. Lose Love Live may be a blessing for any congregational ministry to bereaved members. Grief support groups could easily use it.
Rev. Kenneth E. Reed, PhD
Developer/Author of Healing through Grieving: Learning to Live Again
In this, the most helpful book I have read about loss and grief, Moseley invites the reader to enter into his pilgrimage of living through love and loss into new life, giving pointers for one’s own pilgrimage, highlighting the role of helpful companions, emerging as a blessing for those who read it—a much needed resource for pastors, church libraries, and required reading for Stephen Ministers.
Wayne H. Bell
President Emeritus
Lexington Theological Seminary
Lose Love Live: The Spiritual Gifts of Loss and Change
Copyright © 2010 by Dan Moseley
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher except in brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, write Upper Room Books, 1908 Grand Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212.
The Upper Room Web site: www.upperroom.org
A version of this book was originally published as Living with Loss, © 2007 by Dan Moseley, by Xyzzy Press. www.xyzzypress.com.
UPPER ROOM®, UPPER ROOM BOOKS®, and design logos are trademarks owned by The Upper Room®, a ministry of GBOD®, Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise indicated, scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Cover image: Shutterstock.com
Cover design: MTW design, Nashville, TN / www.mtwdesign.net
Interior design: PerfecType, Nashville, TN
First printing: 2010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moseley, Dan.
Lose, love, live : the spiritual gifts of loss and change / by Dan
Moseley.
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: Living with loss.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
ISBN 978-0-8358-1043-2
1. Consolation. 2. Loss (Psychology)—Religious aspects—Christianity. 3.
Change (Psychology)—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Moseley, Dan.
Living with loss. II. Title.
BV4905.3.M69 2011
248.8'6—dc22 2010040996
Printed in the United States of America
To Deborah
for her faithful love and encouragement
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Introduction: Life Is Fair
1Naming the Loss
2Feeling Pain
3Anger
4Remembering
5Guilt
6Forgiving
7Gratitude
8Play
9Practice
10Becoming New
Epilogue: What Matters Most
A Discovery Journal
Notes
Recommended Reading
Thanks to all who have walked with me through my life. Thanks to all those friends and family, strangers, and therapists who listened to me long enough that I woke up and discovered my life.
I am especially grateful to my colleagues at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, who gave me a place to discover myself through sharing with students the stories that shaped my ministry and life. I am grateful to all the church people, professional and nonprofessional, who invited me to talk with them about loss and its effect on growth. I am also grateful to the groups of people who were grieving losses of children and friends who invited me to share their journey. Through their grace I discovered that I was not alone.
I give thanks for my children, their partners, and my grandchildren for the contacts and encouraging words that kept me pursuing the discoveries that can come through shared losses.
I am deeply and eternally gratefully to my wife, Deborah, for her confidence in me and her patient help in encouraging me to put this out for others. Living into the life you have been given is not always easy. Deborah has been a loving and grace-filled companion to me as I have discovered my new life.
This book is for you if you’ve ever lost a lover, a friend, a dog, a job, a partner, a championship game, a leg, an eye, a baby, a dream, a breast, a house, a car, a business.
It is for you if you have ever wondered what good people can do when bad things happen to them.
It is for you if your city of residence, your job, your family structure, your school, your physical ability, your beliefs, or your worldview has ever changed.
And it is for you if you have ever traveled to other cultures, become acquainted with strangers, had a baby, been betrayed, been abused, gotten married or divorced.
If any of these things have happened to you, this book is for you because this is a book about discovering new life through the losses of life.
You see, each of these events, and any other events that create a significant