I didn’t expect to be writing about grief again so soon.
A few months ago, we mourned the passing of my sister Paula after watching pancreatic cancer take her from us with a swiftness that still takes my breath away. Last weekend we gathered in Michigan to celebrate her colorful and vivacious life. Not long after Paula’s home going, we said goodbye to my mother-in-law, a quirky, funny, and courageous woman who loved me like her own daughter for decades.
And just this week, our family received the kind of message that rearranges everything: my niece’s husband, Jared, has been diagnosed with advanced colon cancer that has spread to his liver. Jared and my niece Carol Joy—my namesake—serve the Lord in the Asia Pacific region where Jared is a bush pilot. They have four school-age sons who are devastated by this news (Titus, Ivan, Gabriel, and Matthias). Life-altering decisions are being made. They are pictured in this blog. Please pray for wisdom and healing. Above all, pray for God’s will to be done.
How about you?
If you’re reading this and you, too, have lived through a season where grief seemed to arrive in waves, one loss barely settling before the next one crashes in, I want you to know something today. You are not alone, and you are not without hope.
C.S. Lewis wrote in A Grief Observed, “No one ever told me that grief felt like fear.” That’s exactly right, isn’t it? Grief disorients us. It makes us feel unsteady on ground we thought was solid. But Scripture doesn’t ask us to pretend otherwise. The psalmist wrote, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed” (Psalm 34:18, NLT). God isn’t waiting for us to stop hurting before He draws near. He comes into the hurt with us.
So how do we move forward when exhaustion and sorrow keep stacking up? Here’s what I’m learning to do, one shaky step at a time:
- Name the grief out loud.
Don’t minimize it or rush past it. Tell a trusted friend, pour out your sorrow in a journal, or talk to God about exactly what you’re carrying. Suppressed grief doesn’t disappear; it just waits.
- Anchor yourself in one promise a day.
I’ve been returning again and again to Lamentations 3:22–23: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning.” Some mornings, that’s the only truth I can hold onto, but it’s enough.
- Let your “Stretcher Bearers” carry what you cannot carry alone.
Corrie ten Boom once said, “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” Part of trusting Him is letting His people show up for you, with meals, prayers, and presence. Receive it.
- Take one next faithful step, not ten.
You don’t have to solve the whole season today. Write the email. Make the appointment. Sit with the family member. Romans 12:12 calls us to “rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer” (ESV), not to fix everything by Friday.
- Remember that joy and sorrow can coexist.
Psalm 30:5 promises that “weeping may stay for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” That doesn’t mean grief disappears overnight. It means morning is still coming.
I don’t know yet what God’s plan is for Jared, for Carol Joy, and for their four sons. I do know this. Jesus lives. He conquered death once, completely, and that victory doesn’t expire. Elisabeth Elliot wrote, “He is God. Therefore, He acts like Himself in all things, including the puzzling and the painful.” I’m choosing to believe that, even now.
If grief has piled up in your life this season too, friend, take heart. We’re not promised an easy road, but we are promised a present, faithful God who walks every mile of it with us, and an empty tomb that means our story doesn’t end in sorrow.
He is risen. So, we rise too.
Question: What “stretcher bearers” has God placed in your life during a hard season, and how did they show up for you? How can I pray for you?
