Watermark Blogs

“I realized that by pretending everything was ok, I’d never allowed Him or anyone to minister to me in my time of deepest sorrow… I missed out on that blessing.”

“I was raised in a loving, supportive Christian family,” said Gaye Jackson Price. “At eight, I trusted Christ as my Savior. I was blessed with a wonderful childhood and really didn’t experience many struggles growing up.”

“When I was 31, I met Joe, a gentleman whose wife had died within the past year. Since the only loss I’d ever experienced was the loss of my elderly grandmother, it never occurred to me that  he probably hadn’t grieved his wife’s death in a healthy way. But Joe swept me off my feet. We met in November, and then with New Year’s Eve balloons raining down from the ceiling, he asked me to marry him, and I said ‘yes’.

“We were married the next April, and 11 weeks and two days after our wedding, he committed suicide. I didn’t know why then. I still don’t know why today.

“At the same time, my father was dying of terminal colon cancer. I pretended everything was okay. I pasted on a brave smile and told him I was fine because I didn’t want my father worrying about me. About a year later, he passed away. But rather than explore my grief, I just held on to that smile. I did things that I thought would make me feel better. I got really busy working all the time, volunteering at church and partnering with local charities. My reasoning was that by working every weekend, I wouldn’t be alone. Or have to face my sorrow.

“The denial spilled over into other areas of my life. I began making bad relationship choices. But I refused to let anyone truly know me, or they’d have seen that I was drowning in my grief. I say it took me nine years to get over Joe, but it really took me nine years to realize that I needed God to lead my life, not the things I was throwing myself into. The foundation I’d built my life on was crumbling. I was just frantic all the time.

“Finally, one day God got in my face and I realized that He had always been right there. He never had forsaken me. If I had just looked to Him, everything could have been different. I finally turned to Christ and asked, ‘Lord, what do You want me to do?’ The answer was obvious: let Him be the center of my life.

First, He gave me the gift of my current husband, Dave, when I was 48. We moved to Dallas after we got married, joined a small church, and true to form I dove right in, thinking the church needed me. But I knew I was repeating an unhealthy pattern somehow. A friend told me about Celebrate Recovery, a Christ-centered recovery ministry at Watermark. Dave and I went.

“Once I got there, the Lord revealed to me that I was deeply concerned with the opinions of other people. As I got more perspective on my struggle, I realized that by pretending everything was ok, I’d never allowed Him or anyone to minister to me in my time of deepest sorrow. If I have any advice for someone who’s grieving, it would be to just get honest about where you are and let God, through the body of Christ, walk with you through your grief. By being concerned about what others were thinking, wanting to look all together on the outside, I missed out on that blessing.

“The second gift He gave me was motherhood. One of the things I had had to come to terms with as a widow was that Joe had taken with him my dreams of motherhood. Dave and I today are the parents of a wonderful son, Jackson. I am blessed!

“The third and unexpected gift God gave me was the chance to comfort others with the comfort I’d received from Him (2 Corinthians 1:4). At Watermark I found out about its grief recovery ministry and knew right away that God had a role for me to play there. GriefShare is for anyone who’s lost a loved one, and it is founded on the promises of hope and healing in God’s Word. This time, rather than seeing ministry as a way to run from my pain, I saw it as a way to use my pain to encourage others and glorify God.

“What a blessing it has been to help others who are dealing with loss and give them a safe place to let their guard down and grieve. To show them they are not alone. That they have God and His people to walk with them through their journey and God’s Word as their foundation. I love reminding them – and myself – of Psalms 62:5-6: ‘Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will not be shaken.’

“I’ve been surprised by a couple of things. I could never have imagined wanting to share my story, my pain, my shame, my poor choices… As so many of us who serve in this ministry often say, I never would have chosen it for myself but it’s clearly where God has me, and I am so thankful that He is transforming my ashes into something beautiful and useful.

“The second thing: I could never have imagined being grateful for what I’ve gone through. But I can truly say now that I am at rest. When I watch joy starting to return, anger melting away, and countenances changing as these friends at GriefShare begin to rest in God’s goodness, I see that I am receiving a much greater blessing than they are.” – written by Sara Olivieri