The Tenpenny Files with Dr. David Keehn

If you’ve ever stood in front of someone who was grieving and wondered what to say, or replayed in your mind something you wish you hadn’t said after a loved one died, you’re not alone. Dr. Dave Keehn has spent more than thirty years helping families through life’s hardest moments as a pastor, professor, chaplain, and counselor, yet it wasn’t until his own 24-year-old son, Adam, died suddenly from a brain aneurysm that he realized how unprepared most of us are for grief. The experience became the foundation for Living in the Shadow of Grief: Enlarging Your Capacity to Grieve with Hope, a book born not from theory but from heartbreak, hard questions, and a determination to help others avoid the mistakes that so often leave grieving families feeling even more alone.

Dr. Sherri Tenpenny understands this conversation in a deeply personal way. After unexpectedly losing her husband nearly thirteen years ago, and more recently walking beside one of her closest friends after the death of his son following a seven-year battle with leukemia, she knows that grief doesn’t end with a funeral or fade according to anyone else’s expectations. Together, she and Dr. Keehn explore why so many of the beliefs we’ve accepted about grief simply don’t hold up when tragedy becomes personal, and why even people with the best intentions often misunderstand what someone in mourning truly needs.

Why do two parents who lose the same child grieve so differently? Why do so many marriages come under enormous strain after the death of a son or daughter? Why do people disappear after the first few weeks, just when the hardest part of grief is often beginning? Why do certain comments stay with grieving families for decades, while acts of quiet kindness are remembered just as vividly? Dr. Keehn explains how these experiences reshaped not only his understanding of loss but also his view of relationships, ministry, and the responsibility we all share when someone we love is carrying unbearable pain.

The conversation moves beyond the emotional realities of grief into questions that many believers struggle to ask out loud. What happens when faith collides with tragedy that has no explanation? Is searching for “why” really the path to healing, or can it become another burden? Dr. Keehn reflects on the disappointment, confusion, and spiritual wrestling that followed Adam’s death, sharing how Scripture gradually redirected his focus from finding answers to finding God’s presence. His perspective on heaven, suffering, gratitude, and hope may challenge assumptions that many Christians have carried for years.

One of the most eye-opening parts of this discussion centers on what grieving people actually need from those around them. Dr. Keehn explains why rushing someone toward healing can deepen isolation, why comparing losses often causes unintended harm, and why simply remaining present long after everyone else has returned to normal life can become one of the greatest gifts another person ever receives. He also shares practical guidance for family members, pastors, churches, caregivers, and friends who genuinely want to help but fear saying or doing the wrong thing.

This conversation is about far more than grief. It’s about love, relationships, faith, disappointment, resilience, and the quiet ways tragedy changes every person it touches. Whether you’ve experienced the loss of a spouse, a child, a parent, a sibling, or a lifelong friend, or whether you simply want to become the kind of person who knows how to stand beside someone else’s suffering with wisdom and compassion, you’ll come away seeing grief through an entirely different lens.

Dr. Keehn doesn’t promise easy answers because there aren’t any. What he offers instead is something far more valuable: a better understanding of what grief really looks like, why hope and sorrow can exist together, and how the people who make the greatest difference are often those who choose to stay when everyone else has quietly moved on.

Meet our Guest

For more than three decades, Dr. Dave Keehn has served at the intersection of faith, education, and pastoral care, helping individuals and families navigate some of life’s most difficult moments. He is Chair of the Christian Ministries Department at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, Teaching Pastor at Cornerstone Community Church in San Clemente, California, and Senior Chaplain for the Orange County Fire Authority, where he ministers to people facing crisis, tragedy, and profound loss.

Everything changed when his 24-year-old son, Adam, died suddenly from a brain aneurysm. That devastating loss transformed both his personal life and his ministry, leading him and his wife Debbie to establish the Adam Keehn Foundation to encourage and mentor young pastors across the United States and Canada. Their journey also inspired Living in the Shadow of Grief: Enlarging Your Capacity to Grieve with Hope, a compassionate, biblically grounded guide that helps grieving individuals, families, pastors, caregivers, and friends better understand how to navigate loss with honesty, grace, and enduring hope.

Website:

https://d6family.com/author/dave-keehn/

Book: https://amzn.to/4vWoBcd