Q&A with Koloff - #8

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This is the Truth Network. Nucky to Koloff here. Questions and answers. Q&A with Koloff, the devil's nightmare. Welcome back. Questions and answers with Nikita Koloff here, the devil's worst nightmare. Hey, today's question comes from W. McCracken Jr. He emailed this in and I say he.

I'm hoping it's a he. It may not be, but you know who you are. He was mentioning the podcast when I shared the story of my late wife Mandy and her passing. He had several questions here. One referring to the grieving process after her death. The question was asked, did I seek therapy? Did I rely strictly on God's Word? How does someone navigate through that with help?

Did I keep in touch with her family? Some great questions. There is a reference here to remembering reading about the story in Pro Wrestling Illustrated.

Bill Aptor was one of the main guys who was part of Pro Wrestling Illustrated when they were a teenager. They remember reading the story. They did a great story by the way. They really did on Mandy's struggle with cancer and her eventual death at a very young age, age 26.

W. McCracken Jr. says, since we're all going to face bad times in our lives, we've always wondered or been interested in how people get through them, what worked and what didn't work. I can only speak from personal experience with the loss of Mandy as a wife. I have since then too lost my mom, lost my dad. I'll just start with Mandy. I will reference my mom and dad. I actually did a show about my relationship with my dad too. If you haven't listened to that or downloaded or subscribed, go and make sure and listen to the show I did about my dad. The situation with Mandy was much different than my mom and dad.

That's why I want to give you a picture of the two. With Mandy, I was not a Christ follower. I was not a believer or a Christ follower. I do remember back in those days, I do remember those last six weeks when she was in the ICU, intensive care unit there in Huntsville, Alabama, going to their little prayer chapel and praying to God. Like many of us, asking why does this have to happen to her in such a young age and all of that. Part of my journey and eventually coming to know Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior, 17 October 1993, that was a part of my journey looking back.

How I dealt with or related to her death, how it opened my eyes to the brevity of life, just how short life truly can be. And really, if we think about it, even if we live to be, you know, Scripture says 70, maybe 80 and some, my parents lived in their 90s, some people live to be 100, but not much longer than that, right? So if you consider eternity and you're like, what's eternity look like? Well, let me see if I can, through the airwaves, let me see if I can paint a mental picture for you how I see eternity. If I was, if you and I were watching, viewing a bird and that bird was going to take one grain of sand off the east or west coast, one grain of sand and fly that grain of sand to the moon and deposit it upon the moon and fly back and get another grain of sand, fly it back and forth until it got all the grains of sand on all of planet earth, deposited on the moon. No telling how long that would take, right? Can you picture that in your mind's eye?

Little bird, grain of sand, fly to the moon, deposit it, fly back, another grain of sand. As long as that would take, that doesn't even touch eternity. Think about that. Eternity is forever. And so, you know, when I think about the brevity of life, whether it's Mandy passing at age 26 or my mom at age 93 and my dad at age 92 and however long I live, I don't know, but however long I might live, it's still the blink of an eye in relation to eternity. And yet we focus so much time and effort, don't we, on the short time we have here on earth. When in reality, we're going to spend eternity one of two places, heaven or hell, according to the Bible. And my goodness, how, wow, how much more important, in fact, it says in 2 Timothy, he talks about bodily exercise being important, but even more important is growing and developing our spirit man, our inner man, that personal relationship with Jesus. Because if we know him and have a relationship with him, then we get to spend eternity with him, forever with him. And so wouldn't we want to grow and learn as much as we can now before we step into eternity, right?

That's called discipleship or something like that. But all that to say, going back to Mandy and how I handled that situation personally. No, I did not seek therapy. I did not do that. I just really grieved on my own. And I certainly didn't rely on God's word because again, I wasn't a Christ follower at the time.

So I didn't believe on or rely on God's word as far as those first two questions. And you asked, how does someone navigate through that with help? Well, I mean, it's different.

I think it's kind of different for everybody, right? There are some who I know therapy does help. So I'm not opposed to that. I just didn't seek that. But there are some who that does help. Therapy does help. Counseling, grieving counseling. Many churches offer that, right?

A grieving counseling to help someone through that with their loved one, especially. And so that's certainly an option, a way of getting help. Certainly for those who are Christ followers, who are believers, I don't know how people, honestly, I don't know how they do it without Jesus at this point. I don't know how they cope.

Well, actually I take that back. I think I do know how some of them cope. It's called escapism. And by that meaning, some will escape into alcohol and, in some cases, even become an alcoholic just to drown their pain and not because they just don't want to deal with it. Some drugs. I mean, so there's different ways. Food. I mean, there's different ways people do grieve.

And some are, you might say, healthier ways than others. But the number one way, I would say, the number one and two things would be certainly having that personal relationship with Jesus is going to be a good starting point. And then if you have that, nothing wrong with seeking out professional counseling, professional help, especially if you're really, really struggling with it and can't seem to navigate that without help, right? And then there may be some close friends that rally around you too. You know, some of them are family members or maybe you're part of a Bible study, and they're going to rally around you and love on you and help you as well.

As far as keeping in touch with their family, I've not kept in touch with her family, but I have, at different times, connected with them, just from time to time. Or some of them I've been out preaching or ministering, they've attended some of the services and came up and said hello, as far as that goes. And as I mentioned, I mean, you know, the Resto Magazine, you know, doing a great story on that. And you're right. We're all, let's face it, we're all going to face some sort of trial, tribulation, you said in your email, bad times. I think of the scripture where God said, it's going to rain on the just and the unjust. It's just the reality, right?

I mean, even if you're a Jesus lover and a Christ follower, it doesn't mean that you're not going to struggle with something or you're not going to have something unfortunate happen to you in your lifetime. And so they're great questions. They really are. And as you said, you know, you've just been interested in just knowing how people get through them and what's worked and what hasn't worked. So that's my personal experience. And as far as, you know, what's worked and what hasn't worked, I mean, obviously, you're going to want to talk to more people, kind of navigate that by talking to more people and just hearing their stories. Hey, what did you do to grieve through your loss? And, you know, what worked and what didn't work?

For me, I think the way I grieved myself through it worked for me. And as I said, led me up to that point in time of eventually surrendering my life to Jesus and then being able to look back on that and have an appreciation for the brevity of life and just how important it is to have a relationship with Jesus and be surrounded with other people who are there to support me, you know, in the passing of my mom, in the passing of my dad. And it was kind of forthcoming. I mean, I could kind of see the writing on the wall, you know, and I could see it was kind of forthcoming.

I mean, I could kind of see the writing on the wall. So I was already preparing my heart for their passing. So, you know, there was a grieving period, but there was a rejoicing and a joy in knowing they both surrender their hearts to Jesus and I was going to be reunited with them one day in heaven. And so that was very helpful as well. So W. McCracken Jr., thank you for all of your questions, man. Appreciate it. Help keep spreading the word on the podcast.

It's time to man up. I hope that was helpful for you and look forward, who knows, maybe one day I'll come to your community and maybe even preach at your church. So you take care. Let's stay connected through social media and all the platforms. God bless you.