How do we help those who are in the "dark night of the soul"? What do I say? What do I not say? What if I say or do the wrong thing?

These are common questions as we walk with those lamenting. This week, Chris Hilken returns for part 2, sharing his own journey and lessons through grief.

Click here to go back and listen to part one https://link.chtbl.com/4sqItFZp

If you or someone you know is currently struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the Suicide Prevention Hotline at 800-273-8255 or go to https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Be sure to like our podcast, share it with a friend, and leave a review!

You can also watch the video versions on our YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on the next inspiring and motivating interview!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbnC2rjEumGJhqy54qazFFw

Connect with us on our website and social media platforms for more engaging, inspiring, and motivating content.

WEBSITE: https://www.nogreyareaspodcast.com/

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/nogreyareas_gagliano/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/NoGreyAreas

TIK TOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@nogreyareasgagliano

EMAIL: info@nogreyareas.com

No Grey Areas is a motivational podcast with captivating guests centered around how our choices humanize, empower, and define who we become. This podcast is inspired by the cautionary tale, No Grey Areas, written by Joseph Gagliano. Learn more about the truth behind his story involved with sports' biggest scandal at nogreyareas.com

Patrick McCalla

Welcome back to No Gray Areas. We are in part two of our interview with Chris Hilton. And if you missed last week's, I would encourage you to go back and listen to it. Chris unpacks his story. It's an incredible story of grief and trauma. His wife committed suicide, leaving him with five kids, one of them a newborn And so today, we're going to continue this conversation about grief, how we walk through our own grief and how we can help others walk through their grief.

Patrick McCalla

Thanks so much for joining us. On the No Gray Areas podcast. You said you've learned a lot about God to this. You know, we're both preachers teachers. Yeah, we both preach many times on grief. The theology of grief. What is it? What have you learned in this journey that maybe is different than than was in what you used to teach?

Patrick McCalla

Or maybe it was the same of what you taught. But it is deeper. I mean. You know, I've gone through some difficult times, but not like this.

Patrick McCalla

There's there's something about someone who's walked through this kind of journey that you're walking through right now that I think we as listeners need to just stop and listen and go. Tell us about the theology of grief, not just from words you read on a page, but from what you've experienced.

Chris Hilken

Yeah, I, I think C.S. Lewis writes it and he says, God whispers to us in our victory, but he screams at us in our pain. And I think one of the biggest things that I've learned is this is so weird because I'm teaching at Hume Lake like two weeks before she passes away. And the, the prompt of the night, which is it was an unusual thing to have for like a kids, you know, a high schoolers summer camp was suffering.

Chris Hilken

How do we make sense of suffering? So I remember thinking to myself, like, I'm preparing this thing and I'm paged in the middle of her mental stuff. But we're really we're going to Hume, like sort of thinking, do something normal, like go back. We assume like it'd be like a home for us and somewhere that we've always loved.

Chris Hilken

It has been like a second family to us. And so we're up there. And so I'm preparing this message, and the message is content was three fold. And so I basically, I said, I start by saying, like, what do you do if you're on fire and you stop, drop and roll? And I said, well, it's kind of like same thing with grief and suffering.

Chris Hilken

If you don't have a plan on what you're going to do when it happens, when it happens, you are going to lower your theology to match your pain. That's what we do when someone experiences intense temptation or sin in their life or pain in their life, they are they're willing to bend God around the theology of their pain.

Chris Hilken

So if you don't have a proper theology of God and almost like a cannon or a measuring stick, or a mold, then if you've got a proper mold of who God is, then when you suffer, you pour your suffering into that more than it becomes God's shape and you understand it. But if your emotions rule or if your paradigm rules and you have a suffering shaped box, you poor God into it, and He becomes that sheep of your suffering.

Chris Hilken

So as my challenge to them is like, if you haven't gone through what, you're going to go through it. And so I said, here's three, here's your stop, drop and roll for suffering. God is good. Hmm. God is sovereign. And God is making me more like Jesus every day in the pain, the suffering, the valleys and the mountaintops all together.

Chris Hilken

And that was it. It was God is good God. A sovereign God is making me more like Jesus. And I remember telling them, if that isn't foundational to what you understand about grief, when grief comes, if you don't bleed that truth, you'll bleed something else that's wrong. Hmm. And so I think for me, it's a first John chapter two.

Chris Hilken

It's basically, you know, it's it's almost a dad writing to his son. The whole book of First John is, you know, this is this is how much I love you. This is what you mean to me. But first John to 15 question mark. I think it's around there. Do not love the world or anything in the world and it's just so funny that for me when I look back on it and it's not until I sit where I sit now and I like I loved the world.

Chris Hilken

I loved the acclaim I loved the possessions, I loved the materialism, I loved the marriage. I loved those things. And none of those by themselves are wrong to enjoy. But when when God spoke me that you shouldn't love anything more than more than you love me. And I didn't get that. And I think now.

Patrick McCalla

You understood it cognitively like you like in your mind you understood it, but you wouldn't even have recognized.

Chris Hilken

You. You know, that's true.

Patrick McCalla

The depth.

Chris Hilken

Of it. It's true for you, Pat. You know what I mean? But that was how I was. I don't love the world. You know who I am. Teaching, too. Don't love you. Don't love the world. And that would have examined me. Like, I don't, you know, like I'm a pastor. Like, I. I teach the word of God. Like I'm passionate about what he does.

Chris Hilken

Like, for sure. I love my family, but I don't love it more than Jesus. I love my comfort. I don't love it more than Jesus. And I've watched kind of the systematic restoration of my heart since she died of realizing I loved the world. Like I watched my heart cry Maranatha like every day, like God come back And death for the first time in my life has almost looked like a welcome to Butler to bring me to the feet of Jesus rather than the oh man you know what I got?

Chris Hilken

I got to get all this junk down before I meet that. And for me, it's now like, because this world is so pointless in our time here is so short I'm going to do whatever I can do because I've got a divine appointment with Jesus coming up, and I want to make sure I bring as many people with me as possible.

Chris Hilken

You see, it's just a it's a short it's a small, fundamental change, but it makes all the difference internally.

Patrick McCalla

So, you know, I don't want to move on because what you just said, I think is so good because I think a lot of listeners myself included here, I think that way a lot of times, you know, I'm like, man, I don't have a lot of time on this. I'm going to try to get I got to get all this stuff done.

Patrick McCalla

I get traveling done. I go see the places I want to see. I don't want to waste my time with, you know, my kids. I want I want to really have time with the kids and the grandkids. That's kind of the mindset. And you're saying it's not all wrong, but there was a degree we've shifted this slightly to what.

Chris Hilken

Maybe for the first time in my life, I love God more than I love my wife. I'm I think I'm learning how to love God more than I love my family. And I wouldn't have understood the the ideals of my heart before. I didn't get that. But I think it's true. And so what you're saying is so appropriate.

Chris Hilken

I got to get I want to go and see this and I want to go and see that I did. I just don't care about it. Like Rome. It can stay. I don't care. I don't care if I ever see Rome. I don't get any of that stuff. Like, there's that. The strange superpower of deep grief is perspective.

Chris Hilken

The strange thing that you talk to anyone that's gone through something like this is they just have this weird sense of that junk doesn't matter to me anymore.

Patrick McCalla

And do you think we can get there without grief?

Chris Hilken

I don't know. I would hope in God's loving kindness and gentleness that if there was a way to get me there without what I went through and again, I don't I I'm I'm not leaping into this world of like, this is what God came and did this to me to do this. But I think while God doesn't author pain, he an author sin, he also refuses to waste it.

Chris Hilken

He refuses to waste our pain. And I feel like a bull horn has no hope.

Patrick McCalla

Our listeners will just take like maybe hit pause and rewind a little bit and listen to what you just said again and spend the next couple of weeks process. Yeah, that's really deep what you just said. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Hilken

And but you know, it's if you wrestle with when you go through this, you, you don't think about anything else. Like all you're, you're sitting with the whole time is God, how could you? And then I remember thinking, but I know that you're good. So my real question is how are you good in the midst of this? Not whether or not you're good, but it's how are you good?

Chris Hilken

And I started seeing everything through this lens. Of This is a thought that I have had. It's kind of been cemented in my soul since this happened, is I prayed so fervently, I fasted. And I you know, I felt like Dave in the Old Testament when his son was going to die, like, God, do something, intervene. Like this can be our story.

Chris Hilken

Our story can be a miracle. Our story can be the changing of this. It can be my wife can be an advocate for mental health in the church, like she can do all these things. And if God is good then he would answer all the prayers that I answer the way that I would if I knew what he knew.

Chris Hilken

In other words, if I was omniscient, omnipotent, omni, benevolent, if I knew what God knew and I saw what God saw, and I loved how God loved and had the perspective that he had, there's not a prayer that crosses his desk that I would answer differently than He answers.

Patrick McCalla

In that and you're saying that's believing and understanding the goodness of God. That's what it would be. Yeah, that's what it is.

Chris Hilken

It's believing. It's believing the truth. It's Isaiah. 55, eight, nine, my ways are not your ways nor my thoughts. Your thoughts as your ways are higher than mine. As as far as the heavens above the earth, you're your ways are higher than mine, declares the Lord. There's no one believes that I still don't really believe that. Because if God does something that I don't agree with, I just see Him as a supernatural version of me who thinks like me.

Chris Hilken

And talks like me and acts like me and responds to the way that I would. I really did wrestle with the fact that God is saying no when I fervently believe He doesn't have a good reason to but what I was really saying is, I don't see how this is better. I don't see how this brings you more glory.

Chris Hilken

I don't see how this is better for your kingdom. I don't see. And there's a big difference between God you're wrong and God, I don't understand. And I think that's kind of where this has brought me is like, but I'm so much more comfortable in the tension of not getting who God is and following fervently and trusting.

Patrick McCalla

After going through loving.

Chris Hilken

Kindness. Yeah.

Patrick McCalla

That dark night of the soul. Yeah. Better it. Yeah.

Chris Hilken

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Well, in the unknown and just kind of signing your name to the bottom of a contract and passing across the dash to Jesus. Like what everyone knew the rest of my life. You can have it. You may get married, I'll get married. You're going to stay single or single. I don't ever. Do you want to move to what you want to do?

Chris Hilken

We'll do what we want to do because I don't I don't I don't want to dictate this anymore. I just want you to be in charge of it all. And that never would have been the case before.

Patrick McCalla

You know, Chris, what you're saying reminds me of a friend of mine who had his set at the bet of two grandchildren that died of cancer. Oh, my gosh. Like two years old and five or six years old. And no, but he quit he he always said to me after going through that, he goes, I think the skeleton that all of our theology needs to hang on is the goodness of God.

Patrick McCalla

If you take away the goodness of God, everything else crumbles. Which is why I think our enemy what does he question right away as he tries to get us to question the goodness of God, I think is his main tactic with us as young people, you you your passion about young people. I'm passionate young people, but that's what he does.

Patrick McCalla

Anybody that grows up in the church, when we start going through those teenage years, we start questioning, you know, is he really good? Does he really want my best? But what you're saying is there's never been a time in your life where you had to confront that as much as when you're going through grief.

Chris Hilken

Yeah. So my my best friend died in Afghanistan, like I said, a few years back, and I struggled with the goodness of God. Then my wife died, and I don't struggle with it anymore. Isn't that weird?

Patrick McCalla

Yeah. I mean, so weird that I didn't even know what question to ask you. I'm like, what's what's the difference? What do you think the difference is?

Chris Hilken

I think the difference is I still had a leg to stand on. I still had my own system of hope. I had my own in pain. We all do different things. I'm an intellectual loser. And once it makes sense to me, like if someone says something rude to me, once I get why they did it or I get what they're going through, I'm like, Whatever I can't do it with this.

Patrick McCalla

You can't make sense of this.

Chris Hilken

I can't make sense of it. And so instead of propping myself up and sitting on the last embers of my own understanding in my own way of doing things and my, like, even like raising kids, like if you came to my house on that day of and I had an amazing community that showed up the day that that we found out that she passed away, I had one concern how are my kids going to be?

Chris Hilken

And there was a leveling of everything that took place where you just go, you just throw yourself headlong into Jesus. And it's because that's all I had as far as I have. Like when Tito died, I, I, I went to Page and I was like, what do we do? And we're walking through this, and I had the church and I had all this and stuff, and here I was like, I just sat there alone and my number one, you wondering why I want to process pages death with most page.

Chris Hilken

Yeah, she's gone. And that's what I think people don't understand to like and not to like brain comparative grief but when you lose your spouse and she was also your best friend, you the number one person that you want to talk about your wife's death with is your wife. And that's gone, too. And so you just go What do I do now?

Chris Hilken

And that's it was it was kind of like as my last finger was pulled off of what I was gripping of my past and of my future and what I wanted for my life as I kind of fell into the lap of God for the first time wholeheartedly. And it's totally submissively and without reservation. And that's what I experience is goodness.

Chris Hilken

And I went, oh, so you're not just good when I give you my foot and you grab that while I'm grabbing my own life and dealing with my own stuff, right? I think I'm a pretty high capacity person, pretty intelligent. So I could deal with stuff. I couldn't deal with it, man. I could. I just can't deal with this and so it was like either throw myself at Jesus, he's my only hope, or I'm going to die too.

Chris Hilken

And when I did that, I just experienced an overwhelming love that in years of teaching Jesus, I've never understood, never even fathomed.

Patrick McCalla

So if I may, I want to ask you a question of that. I'm asking to be really transparent. Yeah. Do you ever struggle with the goodness of God? Was there ever a middle of the night? You wake up at 2 a.m. and you're in the darkest moment of this whole grief process where you question that or gentleness?

Chris Hilken

Yes. Goodness, no. I share with God's gentleness right the fruit of the spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, fitness, gentleness and self-control in the furthest you're supposed to be a manifestation of the character of God. Mm hmm. That'll be a question I ask when I get there, and it's a question I still ask him. Tell me how this is gentle.

Chris Hilken

Tell me how you take a guy who's got five kids in the middle of everything going on, who's following you, who's preaching and teaching and all and how do you just it just gratuitously, like, it's it's my wife's mental health. It's my son's disease. It's Brady's eyes. It's Finley's asthma. It's Peyton's group attack. You just, like, walk me through your gentleness again.

Chris Hilken

Hmm? But when you get the skeleton of God's goodness, you go, this is something I'm not going to get till I get there, and I'm OK with that. But I mean, I'm telling you, sitting in my son's room, it was it was almost supernatural. Just sitting there. And there's this song that I just started listening to that was so powerful for me.

Chris Hilken

And the chorus says, I throw all my cares before we my doubts and fears don't scare you because you're bigger than I thought you were. And I literally had my phone and I got like a little, you know, amplification device in the corner. And so I was like, Siri play worship dance party. That's a play with my kids.

Chris Hilken

And I made for, like, worship music. And the first song is like, you're bigger than I thought. And it's like, that's my struggle right in that moment. Like, are you actually bigger than I thought? Are you as big as I thought? Because if you're bigger than then, I'm OK with throwing myself on you. The weight of the situation, the cares, my future, my anxieties, my fear, of.

Chris Hilken

Yes. So scared. Mm hmm. Like that. I'm going to be the one that screws up my kids. You know, at least I have that buffer of my wife who's amazing in powerful. And then she practices, like, just such an amazing grace and femininity to who she is. And now I'm just this moron and I got to raise these kids.

Chris Hilken

I just don't let me blow this. And I just. That's kind of in my prayers. God, don't be angry that when.

Patrick McCalla

When were you in that room?

Chris Hilken

I called. I talked to my kids the day that she died. I called her dad. This is this dude that I handed her that he I he handed her off to me, you know, and then I got to look at him and, like, I got to call them and tell him, like, I didn't do a good job, you know, and then I had to call my brother and my other brother.

Chris Hilken

And then, you know, I'm just trying to call my community, and I'm doing it kind of desperation. And you're you're trying not to say, like, come here. You know, I need you, but that's what you tell him. You know, like, for each voice I remember, you know, I remember, like, their response. I remember what they said. I remember.

Chris Hilken

And I remember thinking to myself, like, I'm not going to ask you to come in and tell you not to, but I really need you to come here, OK? That's all I remember. Even one of my buddies, Jackie Collins, do you want us to come over? I'm like, no. And then he called back. He's like, I'm on my way, you know?

Chris Hilken

And it's like, that's just what I needed more than anything, is I needed the church to be the church and to watch the community surround me. And they did. And Larry Osborn, the senior pastor at North Coast, they came there, DJ Faulk, like that, these guys that, you know, they're amazing man of faith. And they were there and 20 and 30 minutes and just sat with me and let me cry about stuff.

Chris Hilken

And so yeah, gentleness that goodness.

Patrick McCalla

Such and such an interesting difference but I can, I can understand I can understand a little bit what you what you mean by that.

Chris Hilken

And think about doctor like bedside manner, you know, like, you know what, like a doctor's bedside manner, you know, like the different goodness and gentleness yeah. It's like you can be everyone's had that doctor that's like they're the best in the business, but they're kind of jerk. Yeah. You know, I mean, you're, you're good, you're good, and you do the right thing.

Chris Hilken

You make the right choice, and you're very ethical. Yeah. Do you need to stab me like that? Like, could you have warned me? Could you have asked me how I'm doing before you? Like, before you. Proctology is my like. Yeah. Can we have some conversation? And that's I think that's probably the thing that if I'm in a wrestling match with God, right?

Chris Hilken

Know, that's my wrestling matches. Walk me through your gentleness. So I'm having trouble with it.

Patrick McCalla

Yeah.

Chris Hilken

But I love it. Someone told me, like, if you're wrestling with God, you're still in his arms. That's very different than walking away. And I love that Jacob Israel story in the Old Testament. Like, all that's what the word Israel means to wrestle with God is like, I'm wrestling with him a lot, but I also find a deep comfort, and I'm in his arms and I'm good with that.

Patrick McCalla

I think any of us that have gone through grief, which really anybody who's lived life has gone through grief. Like you said, we don't want to compare grief, but I think a lot of us would probably agree and maybe not at the level that you're going through, but the grief does do some things that there's no other time and are.

Patrick McCalla

Can you quote it? C.S. Lewis were saying where he whispers to us but it's in our grief where he shares some of my grief have gone through the last few years. I feel like he pried my fingers off of us a system of belief that I had no idea. I actually believed. I preached against it for most of my life.

Patrick McCalla

If you live a good life, you should get a good life. I always said That's not in the Bible, but it wasn't until I went through grief. I realized I actually believe that I was believing that. I thought if I did all these good things I did, I should get a pretty good life. And then when things didn't work out, like I thought they should work out, you know, like you're saying.

Patrick McCalla

But I've never heard it put the way you did, Chris. I think that's so good. I think that's going be so good for the listeners to talk about the gentleness of God. Is something that we wrestle with, isn't it? In our grief you have at least. So let me ask you a some questions that can really help us, all of us as listeners where we're going to walk through someone who's going through grief.

Patrick McCalla

All of us, some of us are doing it right now. What have you learned in the last eight months, year? About how what what to do and not to do is you're walking with someone who's in that dark night of the soul.

Chris Hilken

Chris Hilken

And in both of those situations, the people who are around you at that moment are your friends and your family and those who aren't are not. And it's just it's just kind of that simple and so one of the things I would say is the power of presence is so phenomenally important that if you haven't been through grief, you don't get there's almost a running tally in almost anyone's mind that I've gotten to talk with.

Chris Hilken

And there's a good group of like Christian widowed guys that I've been able to communicate with. And they can tell you everyone who has reached out, everyone who was there and everyone who hasn't. Almost like it's in your memory. Like think about your wedding day. If your grandma didn't show up to your wedding but she was in town, you would there'd been there'd be no, there's no and I've had people come up to me since and like, Hey, man, I was a bad friend for you at that time.

Chris Hilken

Like, I didn't know what to say. So I just kind of stayed away. And it's been like six months. But, you know, like, I just want to apologize for being a bad friend. And, and again, I didn't mean to be rude, but it's kind of like, no, it's, it's that burden isn't on you because you're not my friend.

Chris Hilken

If you're not there, then what in the world would you ever be there for that I would really need you for?

Patrick McCalla

That is so important for us to hear now, right? Because we, especially with like the social media, some will say, like, I've got a thousand friends on Facebook. No, you don't write. No, you don't. Your friends are the ones that'll show up at 2 a.m. when all hell broke loose. Yeah, that's what you're saying. Deep grief you really figure that out?

Chris Hilken

100%. And you we have this natural assumption that I don't want to be there and say something stupid or I don't want to I don't want to impose or I don't want to doing those other things. And from what I've found and in the different grief communities that I find myself in, we've got like a weird club that we have going on.

Chris Hilken

Right. But that that's such a foreign concept of like, oh, no, I understand why you weren't there, because I. Yeah, for sure. I wouldn't want you to say something stupid it's the opposite. It's like, sit there. Just shut up. Don't say anything. I remember who is I can give you I can go around and tell you exactly who was there.

Chris Hilken

And I can't tell you anything that I said because most them didn't say anything.

Patrick McCalla

And that's what someone in grief needs.

Chris Hilken

Yeah. I just want to know that you're there with me. And I'm going to talk. And your best the best you can possibly say is I can't imagine. Oh, my gosh. I'm so sorry. I can't imagine mm hmm. You talked about some do's and don'ts. Maybe I can give way to that one, which the do is be be present and a don't is don't write this text message.

Chris Hilken

Hey, I'm so sorry for what you're going through. Reach out if you need anything no one reaches out. If someone's in deep grief, they're in depression, they're struggling with anxiety. They're having a hard time getting out of bed. They don't have the wherewithal to get up and then ask you to work on their behalf. They're not going to do it.

Chris Hilken

The best thing that I think you can do if you're if you have this position in their life is give them full permission to send you away, but show up, you know, hey, you know, there's but you've got to pull outside your door right now. I love you so much here for you, because if I really want to stay home and not I'm not going to text you and go, hey, I'm ready to call in that thing that you asked me for.

Chris Hilken

It just feel so abnormal. And if you've got any issue at all, you're not going to do it. And I think that's everyone's stamp of I did it is once they say the phrase, if you need anything let me know. And then they point back to and go, well, I told you, if you need anything, let me know.

Chris Hilken

And it's like, dude.

Patrick McCalla

Yeah.

Chris Hilken

Do you know any times I've heard that in the last. Yeah. And it doesn't mean anything to me because I mean, I totally understand that, but I'm not going to ask you that. I'm not going to reach out to you. I'm not going to I'm not going to know how I'm not healthy enough to have a good conversation with you right now about what I need from you.

Chris Hilken

And so I've got one buddy Jake Jake in that who, you know, one of our best friend couples he would just show up and he would bring food and he would look at me and he would go, I need you to be honest with me. Do you want to leave right now? And we were close enough that I was able a couple nights ago.

Chris Hilken

You know what? Yeah, I'll just thank you so much for dinner and. Yeah, come back over in a couple of days and you go, you got it. And people would just just be there and sometimes they would just park. We've got a three acre property. They're just parking the property and go, Hey, I'm in your driveway. It's not o'clock at night.

Chris Hilken

It's your first night without Paige, and no one else is here in the house. I'm in your driveway if you need me. If not, I'll sleep in my car. Amazon is in worship. Music do not come outside unless you want to talk. And if you do, I'm here for you. And it was moments like that where you went, oh, I can actually use that because you're right there and you're present, and it's.

Chris Hilken

I'm not asking much of you. And when you feel so low and you're in suffering, you don't think very highly of yourself. And so you don't think that people are being genuine. You go, Oh, you're just saying this because this is par for the course. If you are just saying it because par for the course and you watch the difference in people who do it and those who say, let me know if you need it.

Patrick McCalla

Yeah. Someone who's sitting in your driveway saying, I'll sleep out here and I don't expect you to come out. They're not they're not doing that just because they're supposed to for sure. Yeah.

Chris Hilken

So you get that the differences become starkly clear. Yeah. Between the two of those things.

Patrick McCalla

And so you're really saying show up. And, and if you have that position in their life, give them the permission to say, I don't need you now you can go whatever. But if they don't.

Chris Hilken

If they've got an intense if they've got a close confidant you can use them as a sounding board. Right? So if someone loses a kid and the wife's sister is the she's got a she's got a great pulse on everything, then use them and go, hey, I'm going to come bring food over to I drop it off or you want going to stay for any time.

Chris Hilken

Do you and she can get a read on it. Then they can do that kind of stuff with me because I didn't have page there. It was a direct thing and Jake kind of instigated that with everyone. He, I would tell him and then he would tell everyone else to do and they would come in and one day I woke up and they were just cleaning up all the trash on the property and they were, they were just doing things that were like, we just are going to demonstrate to you that we're not thinking about other things right now.

Chris Hilken

We're thinking about you and we're here for you. Our lives aren't going on because your life isn't going on. And for a couple of week time, that was it was so powerful for me to watch them pause their lives with me. It was almost like sitting Shiva right back in the Jewish custom. Yeah, everyone who's close, you just sit for seven days.

Chris Hilken

When I.

Patrick McCalla

Was just thinking and.

Chris Hilken

It's the same thing it's like my life stops because your life stops and because we worship busyness and the idolatry of work, we don't want to do that. But for me, I'll never forget people who paused their lives and said, I'm just going to sit with you. And that's what you need right now. And that's spoken so strongly to me.

Chris Hilken

Yeah. I'll say one more thing, which is the don'ts I would make. I did this right after it happened. I made a four part. What's the best thing to say to someone in grief? What's the worst thing to say? Someone in grief. The best thing you can say is the right thing at the right time. OK, the second best thing is to say nothing but be present.

Chris Hilken

The third is to say something stupid. The fourth is to not be present, not say anything. And I think people are so concerned they're going to say something stupid. They don't say anything. But that's not the I would rather you make an attempt and me go, Oh man, that was dumb. Then to be silent silence is deafening to the person who's grieving.

Chris Hilken

It's loud and it's it's irreconcilable with your position because you just go How do you not communicate with me at a point like this? How do you not show some level of solidarity or whatever? And you watch people that you've had beef with lay it down and walk towards you and be there for you and and what I've noticed, people who have experienced grief are the best grievers with people because they get it.

Chris Hilken

So if you can't, you got to pick my numbers. And that's something about numbers that I think can be helpful. Don't never compare grief, ever. Someone was like, Oh, you should talk to my friend. He lost his wife and he had three kids and so I think, you know, you would really get along and everything. And it's funny, when we talked, we neither of us said, I know what you're going through because I just don't like you about the dynamics of a marriage.

Patrick McCalla

Yeah.

Chris Hilken

If, you know, if you lose Sharman and I lose Paige and we do on the same day, we both have five kids. You give me the same. No. Yeah, because I might have lost my travel buddy, and you might go, Oh, she was a great wife, but we didn't travel so much. There's so many dynamics involved in that that, you know, if you lose twin daughters, you grieve them differently.

Chris Hilken

Because your relationship with them is so fundamentally different. And how we get people going, like, hey, my basketball coach died last year, so I know what you're going through. It's like, that's the that's the most insulting I know what you're going through. Don't. Yeah. I've had people who have gone through, quote unquote, less, you know, like their great grandma died and they come up to me and they're like, what you said spoke to me so much, and my great grandmother just passed away.

Chris Hilken

And I'll go, I'm so sorry. I have no I can't imagine what you're going through. That must be so painful. I'm so sorry for that pain in your heart. What am I going to say? Your. Oh, your great grandma died. How old was she? 95. My wife was 28. I have five kids. I'm a single dad. If I homeschool and to like that doesn't make any sense.

Chris Hilken

So comparative grief is is the is the rubber of all join those situations.

Patrick McCalla

Do you know when you were giving those four things? The first one? The number one was what? Saying the right thing at the right time?

Chris Hilken

Yeah. Knowing exactly what to say, what to say. And that's what.

Patrick McCalla

Scares people, I think. Yeah, she's going through grief because they're like, I don't know if this is the right time. I don't know if this is the right thing to say, but I think that's where to the crushing. I remember hearing someone say, beware the person who's walking with no limp you can tell really quickly when you're sitting down with someone who's gone through a crushing, maybe different than your crushing chair, but you can tell they've been crushed in life and they understand grief and, and and so sometimes what they're saying or how they're reacting to it, you go in this person at some point is experienced.

Chris Hilken

Hundred percent. Yeah.

Patrick McCalla

You can tell. So so Chris unpack for us now because all of us, if we live very much more life, are going to go through some kind of crushing right. We just if we live years for some of us maybe decades, we're going to go through some difficult times. So give us some do's and don'ts on how we walk through our own grief and what you've experienced and learned.

Chris Hilken

I would say learn how to articulate it and do so often when you're going through grief. Sad is a right word. It makes a lot of sense. I'm sad, but it's also more of a catchall. And what I found is the more the more I can identify what I'm actually feeling. And every moment helps me grieve it better and helps me articulate to people around me.

Chris Hilken

And then by nature, they're able to assist better in it. So so when someone ask me, How are you doing day? I don't I don't go, I'm sad. What? I mean, to be honest, I'm always sad, right? Like for the past eight months, I've been sad constantly. And again, the cloud can get a little bit smaller and a little bit bigger depending on what you're going through.

Chris Hilken

But like, it's just constant sadness. And so for me, there's two articulate like on Easter. Easter was a few days ago, and I'm walking around church and I'm watching families interact and I'm crying because I'm just watching their pastel dresses and the little girls and they're emulating their moms and knowing that's not part of my future at this point, at least.

Chris Hilken

Paige and so I are talking with my family that day. Like today, I really missed the future I was going to have with Paige. They're able to speak into that so much more than I'm generally sad. And so I think when you're walking through grief, do your best to pinpoint what your emotion is. At any moment you might be feeling 18 things but the more, the more I've been able to kind of characterize those things, the more it's helped me internally to go because I'm as I grieve the person of Paige, like she was funny.

Chris Hilken

She was she has idiosyncrasies and she's goofy and she's powerful. And she always like she she she was she just made me feel alive. But some days I'm sad about Paige, but I'm not sad about that part of it. I'm sad because of what she's missing out on. I'm sad because I'm watching Brady hit a home run and I look over and she's not there.

Chris Hilken

That's a very different grief then. I just miss my buddy. I miss my friend. I miss my lover. I miss you here. And then there's a different grief where you miss your future. You think about your kid getting married, you think about their prom. You think about how much they're going to look like her and how they're going to a side by side when they get older.

Chris Hilken

And the the day where Peyton passes her up in height and you grieve the future that you were going to have. And they can be really different from each other. And so I think to articulate to a community around you what's going on and the other thing I would say, and I think just by nature, we backed into this, which is whether it's a small group or a church community or whatever it is you might not think you might think, I'm too busy for this right now.

Chris Hilken

I don't have time for this. I'm not you know, this is or I don't love it. It's not super comfortable. But with anything when you invest in it, you also get to reap the benefits of it later on. And just week after week, we hosted Life Group at our house. So even we wanted to cancel. We wouldn't want to go that week.

Chris Hilken

They would keep showing up. And so it developed such a deep bond that when this happened, we had invested so much into that friendship bank account, into that community bank account that then we were able to write a big check and go, We need you right now. And then they were there for us. And I know different parts of our lives where we didn't prioritize that.

Chris Hilken

This didn't happen during those seasons. And I don't know what I would have done. And so for me, it don't worry about it being enjoyable or really fun every week or, or and don't avoid the awkwardness of starting a new faith community or starting a new group, because if you're consistent with it, you will find after time. That's who I looked around and was surrounded by in the day where everything happened.

Chris Hilken

So move towards community before you get into grief. Mm hmm. For those of you who haven't been hit before, because if there's one promise Jesus makes, it's in this world, you will. Yeah, you will have trouble.

Patrick McCalla

So yeah, it's not if it's wind. Right.

Chris Hilken

So those are a couple those things are people who are going through it.

Patrick McCalla

You know, Chris, hearing your story, one of the things that I'm hearing, too, is that you laid you laid foundations that maybe you didn't even realize you were laying, you know, your belief in the goodness of God like you're saying you didn't even really know the depths of that. And they've been challenged. The gentleness of God, your theology, your system of beliefs, your your community, your faith community.

Patrick McCalla

But there is these foundations that you had been laying down for a long time that are now reaping hundredfold or a thousand fold. Right. Of what you could probably imagine. Yeah. Well, Chris, I just thank you for your transparency and your honesty. And I think what I'd like to ask the audience to do right now is to maybe just pause and that a lot of them are in the position to be the person that's going to show up in your driveway.

Patrick McCalla

In fact, that might freak you out if you had a hundred cars in your driveway tomorrow. But what they can do is maybe pause and just say a prayer for you and your kids because you still have a an intense journey ahead of you. Yeah. Yeah. And with your children and like you talked about all the unknowns of your future, but I just want to say thank you for sharing and being willing to be transparent.

Patrick McCalla

I know for me and I know a lot of the listeners we're going to go through some difficult times if we live many more years. And I have no doubt that there's some things that you're sharing through your journey right now. They're going to have a huge impact on us. So thank you. That's part we recognize that part one and part two of this interview with Chris Hillman has been really, really heavy.

Patrick McCalla

And we want to tell you again that if you're struggling with suicide or you have a family member or friend who's maybe struggling with it, we have the suicide prevention number in our description. And we would encourage you to reach out to them. Our team at No Gray Areas are here for you. Thanks so much for listening.