Linda Querry
Supporting Employees Through Loss and Grief
Grief and loss can significantly impact the workplace, and HR plays a vital role in supporting employees going through such experiences.
Bereavement Leave
Managerial Training
HR administers bereavement leave policies, ensuring employees have paid time off to attend funerals and grieve the loss of loved ones. This can be crucial for emotional well-being and a smooth return to work.
HR can train managers on how to identify signs of grief in employees and offer appropriate support. This can involve flexible work arrangements, reduced workloads, or simply offering a listening ear.
Support Systems
HR can establish programs or resources to help employees cope with grief. This might include access to Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) or creating support groups for those experiencing loss.
Workplace Culture
A compassionate HR department can foster a company culture that is understanding of grief. This helps employees feel comfortable taking time off or requesting adjustments without fear of judgment.
Support Through Experience
Overall, by acknowledging the impact of grief and loss, HR can create a more supportive work environment. This can benefit employees' well-being and even improve company loyalty and productivity in the long run. Understanding and coaching a person through grief and loss is like holding a lantern beside them on a dark and winding path. You can't light their way entirely, but you can offer some comfort and show them the next step forward. Linda Querry has walked this path and knows how to empathize and sympathize with those that are currently trying to navigate through the darkness.
INVESTING IN COMPASSION THROUGH GRIEF SUPPORT
Tailored Expertise for Healing
Linda Querry is an Author, a Keynote Speaker, a former Pastor’s wife of fifty-two years and a recently retired Lead Pastor for four years. Her first book, grief…how long will you linger here? was released in the summer of 2023. Her book came forth from her journaling weekly of the six-year journey of grief (that no one prepared her for) after losing her husband. Her words described this journey as, “Grief…it hits you like a sledgehammer and drops you into a jungle where you find yourself searching for a way through. You try to avoid the potholes, and definitely the quicksand that wants to suck you under. You’ve found yourself on an endless journey without a roadmap, that no one prepared you for.”
A Tapestry of Love and Life
Linda met her husband, Charles, in 1962, shortly after he got out of the Navy. They fell in love at first sight and six months later married, two months before Linda graduated from High School. Quite the opposite from that slogan “teen-age marriages never last,” they proved that wrong after fifty-four years of a beautiful and loving marriage.
Two years after they were married, they entered the ministry as full-time pastors. Those next fifty-two years took them to the states of Oregon, California, Colorado, Illinois, and Nevada. They were not only instrumental in building churches spiritually and numerically, but Charles, a carpenter trained in the Navy, built church buildings from the foundation up, and did numerous remodeling projects of churches and parsonages throughout their ministry.
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Linda is also an Ordained Minister of the Church of God. She ministers to others out of the passion and devotion she has for Christ and believes there is no struggle that threatens your “God-given” assignment that you cannot overcome with God on your side. You will find her refreshing and entertaining as she ministers through illustrated sermons sharing the anointed Word of God.
Honoring the Memory While Embracing Life
Linda has served as a Conference and Retreat speaker, Teacher, Music director, Workshop instructor, Singer, and Pianist throughout the United States during their 56 years of ministry. Both her and her husband, Dr. Charles Querry, served as Lead Pastors for 52 years in the Church of God. After his diagnosis, from a sudden severe back and leg pain, five weeks later Charles made his homegoing to heaven on June 22, 2017. Linda continued to serve as Lead Pastor where they were pastoring. She became the Supervising Pastor to teaching and on-site training four individuals through a two-year program to their ministry licensing. She retired in June, 2021 from Visalia, California, and relocated to McKinney, Texas, where she serves in various groups at Elevate Life Church under the Founding Lead Pastor, Keith Craft.
It was during this transition from the pastoral ministry to Linda finding herself on the “other side of the pulpit,” in a city where the only people she knew were her son, Rod Querry, his wife, Nancy and her granddaughter, Megan that she found herself once again struggling to find out who the “me” she was, because the “we” with her husband would never be again. It was at Elevate Life Church when she heard Pastor Keith Craft say these words: “You have a fingerprint that no one else has, to leave an imprint on the world no one else can.” A few weeks later Pastor Keith’s daughter, Whitney, was ministering and she made this comment, “if you’re still breathing, your story is not over!” Linda said those words shook her, and she began once again to pick herself up, dust herself off and find out what was she still doing here and where was she supposed to be. That moment began her journey towards writing her book. After her book was released, she went on a 13-week Speaking & Book Tour throughout California and Nevada, speaking on “Finding Hope in Darkness.” Another Speaking and Book Tour is currently scheduled in Oregon and Washington state for this summer, and this fall Linda will be speaking, November 9th, 2024, at a Widows & Widowers Conference in Ontario, California.
Living Her Best Life And Embracing Adventure
Linda and Charles have three sons, eight grandchildren, and seven (and will be eight in August) great grandchildren. Her three sons, as well as her grandchildren are actively involved in various ministries. They are talented musicians, singers, and speakers. Linda’s favorite times are having lunch dates (or tea parties) with the grands, spoiling the greats, and escaping with the family to watch or attend a great game with the Cowboys or Dodgers. She loves to decorate – anything! From Leadership “Themed” meetings, to fashionable luncheons and banquets…give her the project and a theme and you can rest assured it will be done with excellence.
Linda is available for speaking engagements as a Conference or Retreat Speaker, or to ministry in your local church at any time. You can order her book here or contact her at lquerry@thearcuegroup.com