Trading Sorrow for the Healing Hope of Christ

At 46, Susan Zonnebelt-Smeenge became a widow. 

She knew grief professionally; as a psychologist, Susan had spent years helping people navigate loss. But very little she had learned prepared her for losing her husband to an 18-years-long battle with a malignant brain tumor. 

“It’s still probably, if I look back at the many deaths of people that have been close to me, was the hardest thing I’ve had to do,” Susan shared. 

Bob DeVries understood grief professionally, too. A pastor and longtime seminary professor, he had spent years helping others through difficult seasons before his first wife died. 

“It’s hard to be a pastor or a psychologist going through this stuff,” he said. 

Neither Susan nor Bob expected to marry again, but God had something else in store. 

They met through a colleague and decided to write a book together — a book about grieving the loss of a spouse. 

“I mean, I knew things clinically because of my profession,” Susan said, “but I didn’t find the literature extremely helpful in my personal experience, and I was concerned that lay people wouldn’t be able to translate what was clinical into terms they could understand.” 

Their book became a bestseller, and before long, Susan and Bob were traveling across the country to speak with funeral directors, hospice workers, and mental health professionals. Their platonic working relationship eventually became a romantic one. 

“We’ve been married now for 29 years,” Susan revealed. 

Their work eventually caught the attention of Church Initiative, a North Carolina-based parachurch ministry that develops resources to help churches minister to people experiencing life crises. Susan and Bob were invited to become experts for a new resource called GriefShare. 

“GriefShare is a 13-week DVD-based program to help people who’ve experienced a loss,” Susan explained. She and Bob have been featured in the program’s videos since its second edition. 

“I think the most recent edition refers to us as ‘classic experts,’” Bob joked. 

Grief Ministry Is Discipleship 

Susan and Bob’s experience as authors, speakers, and grief experts is a testament to how God can redeem our most painful circumstances, using experiences they would never have chosen to prepare them to help others. 

For the past 12 years, they have led the GriefShare program at Mt. Bethel Church, coming alongside people who are searching for answers, struggling with pain, and trying to figure out how to move forward after loss. 

“We help them process their grief from a Christian and psychological perspective,” Bob explained. 

In this way, grief ministry is a form of discipleship because, like faith, grief is also a journey. 

“Most people think of going through grief like going through a car wash — first there’s water, then soap, then a rinse and dry before the car comes out clean,” Susan described. “It’s actually more like washing the car yourself. 

“It’s not something you can sit back and let happen to you and eventually hope that you’ll stop crying and start getting a more positive attitude. It’s a process with goals.” 

Those goals aren't about forgetting the person who died or eliminating sadness. Instead, GriefShare helps participants understand that grief reshapes life and teaches them how to move forward while growing through loss. 

The program gives people space to wrestle honestly with the realities of loss. Some come carrying guilt or regret. Others are angry with themselves, their loved one, or even God. They feel confused because they love the Lord and trust Him, yet still struggle to understand why He allowed such profound pain into their lives. 

“The benefit of the educational group setting of GriefShare,” Bob explained, “is that we have all these people of different perspectives in the room together and they feed each other and make each other think about some of the deeper issues.” 

For people who don't have a relationship with Jesus, grief can open questions they may have previously avoided. 

“Death makes you have to face the fact that you’re going to die,” Susan pointed out, adding that this reality makes people confront what they believe about death, where they go after they depart from this world, and what the meaning of life is. 

She and Bob have watched people who identified as atheist or agnostic complete the 13-week course with a greater willingness to consider the possibility of God’s existence and His desire for a relationship with them. 

They have also seen grief deepen the faith of Christians, moving people from simply attending church to engaging more intentionally with God and His work in the world. Simply put, facilitating Griefshare is how Susan and Bob are leading people to trade the pursuit of more for a life worth pursuing in Jesus Christ.  

“A lot of people say to us, ‘How can you continue to want to see people at one of the saddest times in their life?’” Susan shared. “And Bob and I typically say back to them, ‘It’s actually a blessing, because they come in so devastated and with all kinds of situations in their loss, but then God uses this support group to help them navigate their grief and grow spiritually.’” 

The Trade and the Invitation 

Using the GriefShare curriculum, Susan and Bob help people confront common myths about loss with the truth of Scripture and an empathetic community. 

“People are sometimes embarrassed that they cry, or that they shouldn’t talk about their feelings publicly,” Susan explained. “But we say crying means you cared about this person, that you love them. It’s really a tribute and an honor to the person who died.” 

The group gives people a safe place to express what they’re feeling among others who understand why they’re hurting. 

“Grieving people often think, ‘Oh, I’ll never get over this loss,’” Bob added, “but the Bible is filled with the promise that God will turn our mourning to dancing and our sorrow into joy.” 

That promise doesn't mean Christians are called to pretend loss doesn't hurt. It means they don't have to walk through it alone. 

“According to Psalm 23, He is with us in the valley of the shadow of death, and He leads us through it.” 

Susan believes GriefShare helps people see that while their loss may not make sense to them, “it makes sense to God, and that somehow He uses the evil of death for good.” 

“Not that it was a good thing this person died,” she clarified, “but that God can use this evil to help us grow.” 

This is the trade Susan and Bob have witnessed through GriefShare: perpetual sorrow for embracing Jesus as our Living Hope. 

“It’s not true that you are going to be grieving the rest of your life,” Bob offered as encouragement to those who have recently suffered a loss. “Yes, there will be moments of sadness. Yes, you will miss that person, but you can learn honor them by being grateful for having had them in your life without it keeping you from living into what God wants for you.” 

A new season of GriefShare at Mt. Bethel begins October 4, 2026, and will meet both online and in-person. If you or someone you know has experienced the death of a loved one, Susan and Bob would be honored to walk alongside you on your grief journey. Email care@mtbethel.org to learn more.