L.I.V.E. – Love Infinite, Vigorously Exercised

  • An Invitation

    I hope this note finds you well. Over time, I’ve felt a growing nudge to create a quiet space for reflection; one that holds grief with honesty, faith with humility, and healing with patience. Out of that prompting, I began writing on Substack. What I share there isn’t polished theology or quick answers. It’s pastoral…

    Ze Selassie

  • Grief, Love, and the Courage to Walk Beside Instead of Carry

    Grief has a way of revealing how we love. In moments of loss, suffering, addiction, or emotional unraveling, many well-meaning people step forward with a powerful desire to help. We sit longer, give more, rescue quicker, and absorb pain that is not ours. Often, we call this love. Sometimes, we even spiritualize it. But in…

    Ze Selassie

  • When Grief Speaks: The Sacred Work of Presence, Listening, and Companionship

    Grief rarely announces itself politely. It arrives quietly, or violently through loss, addiction, trauma, broken relationships, mental illness, or the slow erosion of hope. Often, the person sitting across from us does not say “I am grieving.” Instead, grief leaks out through silence, relapse, anxiety, irritability, despair, or numbing behaviors. In grief counseling and grief…

    Ze Selassie

  • When Grief Seeks Comfort: Understanding Addiction Through the Eyes of a Grief Companion

    Grief has a way of exposing the tender, unguarded places within us; those hidden chambers of yearning, fear, and emotional ache that we often try to manage alone. Many imagine addiction as an issue only for “others,” yet when we consider it through a grief-informed lens, we discover something profoundly humbling: addiction is often a…

    Ze Selassie

  • When Grief Sits in the Room: What Group Dynamics Teach Us About Healing Together

    There is a sacred moment in every grief-support gathering where the room exhales, when people realize they don’t have to be strong, impressive, or “okay.” They can simply be. And for many mourners, it is the first time since the loss that they’ve felt such permission. Presenting on group dynamics recently reminded me that good…

    Ze Selassie

  • When Grief Calls Us to Sit, Listen, and Stay: The Sacred Work of Grief Companionship

    Grief companionship is not a technique. It is a ministry of presence, a gentle willingness to walk with those whose hearts have shattered in ways that words alone cannot mend. In pastoral care and Christian counseling, we quickly learn that grief does not require us to fix anything, it requires us to remain, to hold…

    Ze Selassie

  • When Grief Finds Us: The Sacred Art of Companionship in Christian Counseling

    Grief has a way of slowing the world down, sometimes to a standstill. It rearranges priorities, interrupts rhythms, and exposes the tenderness of being human. In pastoral care and grief counseling, we do not rush people through this valley. Instead, we walk with them gently, honoring every tremor of sorrow and every flicker of hope.…

    Ze Selassie

  • When Tears Become Testimony: What Three Church-Based Groups Taught Me About Grief Companionship

    Grief has a way of slowing life to the speed of honesty. It quiets the noise, sifts our priorities, and calls us into sacred spaces of vulnerability: places where words fall short and presence matters more than answers. Over the past season, I’ve had the profound privilege of sitting in three very different group settings…

    Ze Selassie

  • Understanding Grief Healing in Community Support

    Grief enters our lives like an unexpected storm: sometimes whispering, sometimes roaring, always reshaping the landscape of the heart. As pastoral caregivers, counselors, and companions on the journey of sorrow, we are invited into holy spaces where human vulnerability meets divine tenderness. The question is never simply “How do we fix this?” but rather, “How…

    Ze Selassie

  • When Heaven Meets Our Hurt: The Birth of Jesus Through the Lens of Grief

    The birth of Jesus is often wrapped in the warm glow of Christmas lights, celebration, angels, shepherds, and songs of joy. But when we sit closely with Matthew’s account (Matthew 1:18–2:23), another reality emerges; one filled with fear, loss, displacement, trauma, danger, and divine presence in the midst of suffering. When viewed through the eyes…

    Ze Selassie