One of my biggest priorities is supporting students as they go through challenges in their lives. I am not a mental health expert, but I am here to tell my story and share advice coming out of my successes, as well as my failures.

It was a Saturday. I was trying to finish a sermon but couldn’t quite get it done. Feelings of sadness didn’t help. Maybe going for a walk would. It didn’t. Despite the beautiful fall afternoon, the sad feelings only increased. They reached a point of almost overwhelming me with their power. I knew I had to do something.

Grief is often described as “deep sorrow,” “sadness,” or “heaviness of heart.” For me, in this situation, I would define my grief as “deep sorrow over shattered or unmet expectations.”  It’s private and personal, yet at the same time, it needs to be known so it’s not in the dark. This grief needs light.

As the air ambulance landed on the tarmac in Paris, France, I was placed on a gurney and rushed to a major hospital in downtown Paris. The icy February air bit at my cheeks, so different from the balmy warm air of Bokoro, Chad, where I’d been just a few days earlier.