From My Journal

We attended GriefShare a couple of weeks ago, and the host said something that really stuck with me:

“Grief is one of those things you can’t truly understand until you’ve lived through it.”

It’s true. Those words resonated—NOT as a reminder of pain, but of God’s grace. Even in the depths of grief, I serve a God who meets me there. Jesus is the God of all comforts. He doesn’t just help me survive it; He’s teaching me how to breathe again, how to find purpose in the pain, and to see beauty rising from that broken place.

Grief changed me, but God is using it to shape us—tenderly, lovingly, faithfully. 

Death isn’t the only thing that can cause us to grieve. It can be loss without closure, major life transitions, divorce, financial hardships, broken relationships, unmet dreams, a loved one’s incarceration, or changes in health. 

All of these things can cause us pain and sorrow, but God can heal us from them all. The depth of your grief is connected to the depth of what you’ve lost. But don’t trap yourself in a cycle of internalized pain. 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me (the Messiah), Because He has anointed Me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent Me to announce release (pardon, forgiveness) to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed (downtrodden, bruised, crushed by tragedy),”

Luke 4:18

“He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds [healing their pain and comforting their sorrow].”

Psalms 147:3 

No matter what caused your grief, it doesn’t have to linger, and you don’t have to stay stuck there.

“Grief is a passage, not a place to stay.”

Allow God to walk you through your grief. The process has ups and downs— some days are harder than others. 

As my brother Terach so perfectly said,
“One thing I’ve learned about grief is that it comes like the waves of the ocean—sometimes it’s small and just brushes against your ankles along the shoreline, and other times it’s as forceful as a tsunami.”

In grieving, I realized it’s not just the loss of my sons that I mourn, but also the loss of hopes, dreams, plans, a sense of purpose, and who they could have grown to be. Truthfully, only God knows whether the way we trained them up would have carried into adulthood. 

I’ve learned that grief is a process of moving with loss, not over it—where the pain softens over time, but the love and memories transform into a part of me that I carry forward. This “passage” acknowledges that while I didn’t forget, I’m learning to navigate life with my loss woven into my new identity. 

The pain is softening without erasing the memories. I’m constantly finding ways to honor their memory, as remembering my sons has been a key part of healing and moving forward. My husband and I continue to find ways to transform our pain into something that celebrates their lives and love that remains in our hearts. 

It’s often difficult to accept support, but I’ve learned to embrace it—especially on the days when the pain feels numbing. Every day, I resist the urge to pull away from the people who love and care about me. In my mind, I’m protecting them from my intense emotions of grief. Which can be unpredictable and often come without warning. 

I am grateful for the connections that have helped me through grief— the Lord, His Word, prayer, my husband, my family, my pastor and his wife, my church family, my close friends, support groups like GriefShare, and professional counseling.

My husband has a saying, “Time heals, time reveals.”

Letting others that I trust in have made grieving more bearable. Life continues as we reconnect with people and our surrounding. It’s painful at times, but it’s also a source of healing. Through the passage of time—with God’s help—we are being restored piece by piece: to move forward, to hope again, to dream again, and to no longer fear the future. God has promised me thoughts of peace of peace and not of evil, to give me an expected end (Jeremiah 29:11). He knows the thoughts He thinks towards me—plans for a future and a hope.

The loss of our sons is now a part of our story, but it is not the end of our purpose. We’re embracing life again—one second at a time, one moment at a time, one day at a time. God is shaping who we are becoming for His glory, like the clay in the potter’s hands. To Jesus be the glory alone!