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

  • Companions on the Long Night: A Gentle Guide to Grief Companionship and Support

    Why “companionship” changes everything When someone we love is hurting, our reflex is to fix. But most grief doesn’t want a solution, it wants a witness. Grief companionship is the ministry of staying close: grounded, tender, and unhurried. It’s the practice of making room for tears and silence, helping with small practicals, and protecting the…

    Ze Selassie

  • Healing Through Forgiveness in Grief

    Forgiveness as a Healing Practice in Grief: A Pastoral Guide for Companionship and Care In seasons of loss, forgiveness can become a quiet doorway to healing. This pastoral guide explores grief companionship through four promises of forgiveness, practical steps for families, and a ministry-of-presence approach grounded in Scripture. When grief enters a home, it rarely…

    Ze Selassie

  • Midlife and the Ministry of Grief: Turning Loss into Legacy

    Middle adulthood (roughly 35–65) is often described as the “middle miles” of life; the stretch where the road is long, the scenery changes, and our pace naturally shifts. Children launch, parents age, careers plateau or pivot, bodies speak a little louder, and our calendars fill with milestones we never imagined would carry so much ache.…

    Ze Selassie

  • Early Adulthood, Grief, and the Ministry of Companioning

    Early adulthood (roughly 19–35) is often framed as the decade of becoming; love, work, family, and calling. Yet for many, it’s also when grief arrives: miscarriage or infertility, divorce, job loss, disenchantment with career, the death of a spouse or friend. These losses don’t just hurt; they can unsettle intimacy, identity, and purpose. What changes…

    Ze Selassie

  • When Adolescence Meets Grief: Companioning Identity in the Storm

    Grief doesn’t wait until adulthood to arrive. It often breaks into adolescence; the fragile, formative years when a young person is asking life’s biggest questions: Who am I? Where do I belong? What is my purpose? When loss collides with these questions, sorrow doesn’t just ache; it can unsettle identity, shake belonging, and confuse moral…

    Ze Selassie

  • Industry, Inferiority, and Grief: How the “Middle Years” Echo in Our Losses

    The ages of 6–12 can look ordinary from the outside; school days, team sports, spelling tests. But beneath the routine, a child is quietly asking life-shaping questions: Am I capable? Do I belong? Do my efforts matter? Erik Erikson called this the crisis of industry vs. inferiority: children are building competence through work, play, and…

    Ze Selassie

  • Small Hands, Brave Hearts: How Ages 3–5 Echo Through Our Grief

    Grief rarely begins with the funeral. It often awakens older echoes; the first places we learned whether it was safe to try, to feel, to reach for comfort. The years from three to five are especially formative. In that season, children experiment with courage, test boundaries, and discover whether their questions are welcomed or shamed.…

    Ze Selassie

  • Healing Grief through Childhood Insights

    Early Wounds, Lasting Echoes: What Ages 2–3 Teach Us About Grief Grief has a way of drawing us back to the most vulnerable places of our story. In counseling, I’ve seen how adults facing loss often revisit unresolved shame, fear, or insecurity first planted in childhood. Chapter 5 of Human Development by Joseph Bohac and…

    Ze Selassie

  • When Grief Speaks Through Anger: Lessons from Correctional Ministry

    Grief has many voices. Sometimes it weeps silently. Sometimes it trembles with fear. And sometimes it erupts as rage. In correctional ministry, where trauma and loss are ever-present, I witnessed this truth in a profound way. During a conversation, one of the brothers stood suddenly, clenched his fists, and threatened to kill me. My instinct…

    Ze Selassie

  • Cultural Sensitivity in Grief Companionship

    Listening Through Cultural Lenses: A Pastoral Approach to Grief Companionship Grief is universal, but it is never experienced in the same way. Every culture, family, and individual carries its own language of sorrow. Some grieve with loud lamentation, others in silence. Some expect communal rituals, while others retreat inward. As grief companions, we are called…

    Ze Selassie