By GriefWorks Director Larry M. Barber, LPC-S, CT
When our executive director Rob Pine first suggested that I author a grief survival guide shortly after I came to ChristianWorks for Children in April 2007, I was reluctant. I doubted that I could say anything about grief that had not already been said in the many bereavement volumes out there in the marketplace. But Rob continued to insist and support the need for me to document my grief story and the grief stories and insights of fellow mourners it has been my privilege to meet over the last 19 years. I gave in finally, spent many weeks and months writing, and Love Never Dies: Embracing Grief with Hope and Promise was published in July 2011. In the last few months, some 100-150 copies per month of Love Never Dies have been sold or distributed through ChristianWorks, GriefWorks, Xulon Press, and online around the world through bookstores such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
When readers ask me how the book came about, I tell them that over the last 19 years God has given me a grief ministry and now a book to minister to those whom I would never have the time or opportunity to personally meet. Since that ministry began and into the publication of Love Never Dies, I have just been along for the sometimes bumpy and many times rewarding ride. Thanks go to Rob Pine, the staff at ChristianWorks for Children, all the families of GriefWorks, family members including my son Christian and daughter Sarah, friends and church family who have encouraged and supported me in putting together and distributing Love Never Dies. But the true thanks and praise goes to my Best Friend and Supporter who has personally been with me for the journey and placed all these encouraging people in my path.
Today the blessings from writing Love Never Dies continue. Churches, service organizations and grief support ministries are using the book to minister to mourning children, teens and adults locally, nationally and internationally. I am humbled and thankful to all who have read and are passing along the comfort to others through Love Never Dies. I could never have foreseen how God could use my story and this book in the ways that He has.
I am reminded daily that my story and your story are intertwined with God’s Story and Purpose for all mankind and to the glory of His Name. We serve a God who does amazing things.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21
