Dealing with the loss of a spouse, child, family member or friend is one of the hardest things that anyone can go through,  The Cochrane Alliance Church is offering help and encouragement to help you deal with the loss of someone you love,

Larry Charter, the Pastor of People Care at Cochrane Alliance, says Grief Share will help people embrace the grief process and start rebuilding their lives as they go through the process of dealing with the pain and the hurt that comes with losing someone.  

"Starting with, 'why did this happen to me,' then moving through the stages that help you address the fact that you're normal in going through this and giving them some tools in their daily life to embrace handling all the stress that comes with it."

Charter says there are 13 sessions that start with the questions of 'why' and then help you to move on from there with the rest of your life.  "Making sure that you don't get stuck.  Some grieving people have kind of got stuck and thrown up their hands and said 'I don't know if I can go on, it's just too painful','  We seek to reach out to people like that in a compassionate way and help them with some ways of facing those kinds of pressures."

Charter believes that Grief Share will help those who have recently experienced grief and those that have struggled with it for years.

"Last year we had 22 people some of whom had experienced grief just weeks before we began and others who went back seven to 10 years who have just kind of stuffed their pain and now say 'I really need to go back and re-visit that,'  So we get a cross section of people, both recent and past, who are there and numerous different kinds of situations that are involved as well," Charter expains.

Charter will co-facilitate the group along with another professional counsellor,  "Others who have gone through grief are working as facilitators when the group breaks off into smaller groups so there is more privacy."

Charter says the support group begins with an opportunity for people to share their story of grief, but he insists there is no pressure.  "We give people the option to pass if it's too painful to talk about, they can just sit and listen."  Most people, when they realize that everyone there has experienced some loss, they relax and open up.  There are a lot of tears and we welcome that.  We also allow for the whole range of emotions, anger and all of the things that go into being human."

The things discussed at the group span a whole gamut of emotions according to Charter.  "Some of the things they talk about is 'I just feel there is no hope to carry on.'  Other people say 'am I losing my mind, literally, the pain is just so powerful,' they want to know am I normal feeling this way so we start out with that premise, yes, it's very normal, it's to be expected but they can work through  it and come out healthy at the other end in spite of a certain amount of pain that will always be there."

Some people could be put off by the fact that Grief Share is run by a church, something Charter totally understands,  He says people needn't be concerned.  "Our view is that we are here to help people grieving.  There are no hidden traps.  We don't set this up so people will attend our church, if we don't see them again in our church that's just fine with us.  Our number one principle is to help hurting people.  Just so people know, the curriculum we use is a faith based one but anyone of any religious faith or of no religious faith is welcome here."

The cost for the 13 week program is $25 to cover the materials.  Grief Share begins Thursday, September 21st at 7:00 pm at the Cochrane Alliance Church.  You can register at cochranealliancechurch.com or by calling 403 932-6100.