Grief isn’t a perfect circle
It’s more like the lines in a heartbeat
It is predictable and unpredictable
It is controllable and uncontrollable
It is many things at once.

We just celebrated Fathers day and this one hit me harder than it has since my dad passed. I was sitting in my car at church, waiting to walk in for worship sound check, and I couldn’t really breathe. At the same time I had thoughts in my head judging myself because I “should” be “over it” by now.
“its been so long, why are you still sad?” “He wasn’t really in your life anyway” “You are an adult, just put on a face and lets go.”
So many things racing in my head while I’m holding a deep grief that felt confusing.
I want to share this thought process in the hopes that this can help someone else who is going through grief too.

As a therapists we are taught the “cycle of grief” or the “5 Stages of grief.” I remember sitting in class learning about this and laughing in my head about the concept. They made it sound so clean cut and easy, that you went through these stages and then POOF you’re better!
At the age of 22, around the time I was in grad school, I had already lost my father, my papa (who was my best friend), my Grandpa on my dads side, my Great grandma who I lived with, my other Great Grandma, and my great grandpa AND 4 of those deaths happened within a 4 month span when I was 16 AND AND my mother was in active addiction and not really present in my life.
So, I KNEW about grief, and at a young age I knew it wasn’t a pretty cycle or steps or stages. It is messy and not something that can easily be quantified and if you’re not taught or guided through how to heal, your brain will do what it needs to to not feel the pain.

I have always been someone who used humor to cover up how I am actually feeling as well as just not talking about it. I learned how to stuff it, push it aside, and laugh about it because at some point the grief becomes so overwhelming that if you don’t laugh you will cry.
I got so “good” at hiding my grief, or so I thought, and then: I had kids.
BOOM
That shook up all the “hidden” things and feelings.

My father was dead, the only father I actually had died when I was 11, my mother was alive but not really a mother, We lost our first baby to miscarriage, and then when I looked into the eyes on my beautiful baby girl ALL the emotions came crashing down.
Then, when I found out I was having our son, my mom dies un expectantly.
I was a mom of two, my son being disabled from birth, and I had NO time to process. So I did what I knew to do and I shoved it away.

Grief is tricky. You can actually heal, or feel like you have healed, in some ways but when you are presented with a new life stage, you have kids, you get a new job, all of a sudden you are reminded that they aren’t there to witness it. They aren’t there to congratulate you or see how far you have come.
Or, they are there physically but they aren’t there in the ways that you need them.

Grief can pop up when you smell their perfume or cologne in the sock isle at target (guilty lol) or when you hear their song at a gas station in middle of no where (also guilty.)
And it can pop up when an amazing artist like Noah Kahan releases an album that describes basically your whole life that you are confronted with emotions that you thought you “dealt with” (thanks Noah lol.)
I have found that in these times when things “pop up” it is better to allow them to be there and actually sit with them and process them than to push them down SO THAT they don’t grow and fester into something bigger.

Now, lets talk about the usual things that people say when someone passes. I grew up around Christian circles and lost the majority of my family members while in those circles and here is what I heard:
“Well, they are in a better place now honey.”- actually Linda, I can’t really be sure of that.
“We don’t grieve like the world does without hope!”- uhhh I am literally 16 and just lost my dad but I guess i’ll be happy?
“Choose Joy!”- but where do I put the sorrow?

I grew up being told to basically shove it away, put on a face, choose joy, be happy, but deep inside was deep grief and sorrow that had to go somewhere! And boy howdy did it go places. It went to depression and anxiety, ruminating thoughts, intense fear, anger, with craft, nightmares, the list can go on.

As Believers in Jesus we DON’T have to grieve LIKE the world does without hope, that is true, but let us not forget the ENTIRE BOOK of Lamentations. Lets not forget the hundreds of Psalms, where the writer talks about how his pillow is soaked with tears. Let’s not forget the prophet who sat under a tree and asked the Lord to just kill him
while at the same time not forgetting that we have hope, we have peace, and jo!
AND those things are not EMOTIONS! They are a a heart posture to live out of.
You can live IN HOPE and still be sad! You can live IN PEACE and still grieve the loss of a loved one.
We just don’t grieve like the world.
What does that look like? well, because we are living from peace and joy and hope IN Jesus, we are not consumed by the grief. It does not cause us to LOOSE hope in that season but we cling to Jesus even more.

This is not always “easy”. And if you or someone you love is going through this its not going to work to just throw a post card at them with live laugh love on it. But it takes ABIDING in Jesus daily. LOOKING to him through the grief. Being so covered in his word, the TRUTH, that the lies of grief don’t fill your mind!

I’ll be honest, this last week or so i’ve allowed myself to slip into a place where the grief has felt stronger than the peace. And before, I would have allowed that to consume me. But now, because of the time I have spent with Jesus, I have built up his word in my heart and have the truth at my fingertips AND I have allowed community in my life to see me and point out truth to me as well. This time around I have used this to process WITH the Lord and my community instead of it turning into depression.

It’s NOT about leaving your stuff at the door, putting on a happy face, and walking in.
It is about being rooted and abiding in Jesus SO THAT you are living FROM Joy, Peace, and hope and HOLDING at the same time the sadness and grief SO THAT your father in heaven can comfort you and your community can surround you.

I am not in the same place of grief that I was when we lost our first baby, but I do think about them often. I am not in the same place emotionally when my mom died, but she pops up every now and then. I am not in the same place because I allowed myself to give those things to the Lord and live from his peace but that does’t mean that loosing a baby, loosing both of my parents, loosing loved ones will ever NOT be sad and I am never going to downplay or pretend like its not.
But I will praise the Lord for healing me, giving me peace that surpasses understanding, giving me a hope and a future to live FROM so that when hard things happen I won’t grieve like the world but I will grieve with my heavenly Father.

So if you are grieving today, I love you and I pray that you can find the peace and joy to live from, His name is Jesus and He has changed my life in every way.

This is only a sliver of my testimony, the amount of things that He has saved me from physically and mentally is too much to write in one post.
But I pray that you know that you can grieve, you can cry, you can be sad BUT do those things WITH HIM in prayer, in His word, and living FROM His peace so that your grief will not consume you.

And if you are someone who is loving someone who is grieving, allow them to grieve. Let them talk about their loved ones, don’t be afraid to ask questions! But please, don’t force them to be happy for your sake. Don’t tell them to leave their stuff at the door before they serve or come to a bible study.
If their grief is consuming them and you can see that, then be a good friend and pull them aside and walk through that with them! We should love each other enough to tell them the truth, and sometimes the truth is HARD but thats ok!

Give yourself grace as your go through the grieving process. You will heal, and then something will come up, and you will heal again, and then you will hear something, and you will heal again.

Thank you for letting me share my heart, this was more for me than anything else lol.
Love ya!