What does compassion look like when someone in our lives is suffering? Are there both practical and meaningful ways that we might care for a loved one in their season of grief?

This episode is the second half of our conversation with our friend, Catherine Fitzgerald. After her brother suddenly passed away, her pain was multiplied by an unexpected loss of community. Over the course of her healing journey, she dove headlong into self-education, with an insatiable appetite for research on how trauma affects the brain and body. Spiritually, Catherine found her faith to be more refined and purified as a result, less focused on easy answers and more rooted in honest presence with pain.

She also became keenly aware that our culture often lacks the confidence to respond to suffering with compassion. From this realization, Catherine began to articulate a vision of grief as something that must be companion­ed and witnessed, not fixed or rushed through. She speaks to the power of the ministry of presence: having the courage to walk alongside someone, to stay, to listen, and to offer simple, practical care when words fall short. Grief is so deeply personal and unique, which can also lead to isolation… because no one really understands. For this reason, what heals is not advice, but people willing to show up, again and again.

In this episode, Catherine invites us to rethink how we care for one another in loss, and what it truly means to love someone well in their season of grief. Her recommendations for books and resources are thorough and broad, so please check our show notes for those as well. We hope you’ll find a moment to listen and learn how to enter someone else’s dark season with tenderness and love.

Show Notes: www.medicinemotherhood.com/blog/suffering

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Grieving a loved one is an experience shared by all of humanity. And yet, while grief acquaints itself with each of us, we find ourselves uncertain when someone close to us suffers.

We aren’t sure what to say…

We don’t want to bring up the pain…

We want to fix the hurt and relieve the sorrow…

So we end up saying nothing.

This is precisely why we want you to meet our dear friend, Catherine Fitzgerald. Our two-part conversation will reveal a heart laid bare, confessing the rawness of her brother's death, a journey through a dark night of the soul, and then the process of rebuilding her heart, mind, and soul towards wholeness.

Her story will give you the courage to enter into your own healing journey and to be better equipped to offer compassionate witness and love to those who suffer. Catherine has courageously undertaken the transformative work of self education and spiritual healing, and by giving her pain a purpose, her story testifies that, with Christ, nothing indeed is wasted.

Show Notes: www.medicinemotherhood.com/blog/suffering

Follow Find a Moment Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/findamomentpodcast/

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This episode is opening our first series of Season Two of Find a Moment. These conversations will be focused on grief and suffering… an experience that touches every one of us in some measure and spares no season of life.

In this powerful conversation, we sit down with our dear friend and worship leader, Taya Johnson, whose story is marked by unimaginable loss and resilient faith.

At just 27 years old, Taya’s testimony includes a volume of tragedy that has shaped her young life in profound ways.

Taya shares openly about grief, worship, and what it means to persist in trusting God when the pain feels unbearable. Her faith is hard-won, deeply rooted, and formed in the valley. Even in sorrow, she continues to be a beacon of hope and light for her family, friends, and congregation.

The episode is an invitation to find a moment to sit with grief, to honor loss, and to discover that Jesus meets us most tenderly in our deepest pain. May your own tender encounters with grief and suffering be soothed by the knowledge that you are not alone and that there is hope.

Show Notes: www.medicinemotherhood.com/blog/suffering

Follow Find a Moment Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/findamomentpodcast/

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