We're taught to rush past grief. To fix it, explain it, or hurry someone back to "it is well with my soul." Pastor and author Vadim Yurchenko learned the hard way that healing runs the other direction. After losing his newborn daughter, Hope, at just 56 days old, Vadim discovered that before you can say it is well, you have to be honest enough to say it is not well.
In this deeply moving conversation with Glenn and Phyllis, he reframes grief not as an enemy to defeat but as love wearing a different face — the "dark side of the moon" that turns out to be full of light. If you've ever lost someone, or sat helpless beside someone who has, this one gives you language for what you couldn't name.
In this episode:
•Why "grief is love" — and the NASA image that changes how you'll see loss forever
•The difference between grief (the event) and grieving (the choice), explained through an earthquake
•How all eight core emotions fire at once in loss — and why that's not disordered, it's designed
•Being angry at God: why honesty draws you closer, not further away
•The relief-and-guilt no one warns you about when a long illness ends
•Presence over fixing: what to do when you don't know what to say
About Vadim Yurchenko: Vadim is a pastor and author who never expected to write about suffering — until he and his wife lost their daughter, born premature and held for only 56 days. His memoir told their story; his second book, It Is Not Well With My Soul, invites readers to befriend grief instead of running from it. He also leads grief seminars helping people find language for loss.
Resources mentioned:
•Vadim's book: It Is Not Well With My Soul: Volume I: Recovering the Art of Grieving → https://a.co/d/0eArFWHV•Grief seminars →https://www.reimaginehope.com/
•The Core Emotion Wheel → https://connectioncodes.co/cew
