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

  • 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

  • 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 Grief Needs a Village: How Community Becomes a Healing Sanctuary

    Grief is not a problem to solve; it is a journey to be accompanied. I have learned that the deepest healing does not happen in isolation. It unfolds inside safe, and compassionate communities; what Scripture calls koinonia, a shared life where burdens are carried together and no one walks through the valley alone. The insights…

    Ze Selassie

  • When Grief Finds a Circle: How Healing Happens in Community

    Grief has a way of convincing us that we are safer alone. When the heart is shattered, the natural instinct is to retreat away from noise, away from expectation, away from eyes that may not understand. Yet again and again, in pastoral care and grief companionship, I have witnessed a profound truth: Grief eases its…

    Ze Selassie

  • Grief Needs a Circle: Why Companionship Heals What Isolation Cannot

    There are some seasons of loss that you simply cannot survive alone. You can keep functioning, of course. You can show up at work, respond to messages, serve at church, and say “I’m fine” with a semi-convincing smile. But deep inside, grief sits like a weight on your chest, pressing down your breath, your voice,…

    Ze Selassie

  • When Grief Knocks: Why Companionship Heals More Than Advice

    Grief companionship is a ministry of presence, not answers. Learn how to walk with the bereaved in emotionally honest, biblically grounded, and psychologically wise ways, with practical steps for churches, families, and friends. What hurting people need first: a companion, not a fixer When loss breaks into someone’s life, most of us reach for words;…

    Ze Selassie

  • When Grief Visits Home: A Pastoral Guide to Companionship, Comfort, and Courage

    Grief does not keep tidy hours. It arrives in delivery rooms where joy and exhaustion mingle, at kitchen tables strewn with homework and unpaid bills, and in sanctuaries where candles flicker beside a child’s photograph. As pastoral caregivers and Christian counselors, our calling is not to explain pain away but to accompany it; patiently, prayerfully,…

    Ze Selassie