What brings you to this page, my friend? I’m so sorry for your loss and your hurt. There is comfort in the shadows, in hiding, in the quiet, in reading the psalms, in listening to music, in spending time in nature, in sitting with a compassionate friend, in attending a grief group with similar loss.

Do you have nightmares, trouble sleeping, trouble being awake? Are you running out of tissues, thinking no one else understands? Do you have trouble getting out of bed in the mornings? You are not alone.

I am weary with my moaning;
    every night I flood my bed with tears;
    I drench my couch with my weeping.
My eye wastes away because of grief;
    it grows weak because of all my foes. ~Psalm 6:6-7

Webster defines grief, “deep sadness especially for the loss of someone or something loved.”

Even God in his humanity wept with Mary and Martha over their brother and his friend. “Jesus wept.”

Can’t you just hear the anguish in King David’s voice when he went out to the gate and wept after he learned his son had died in battle?

“O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

II Samuel 18:33

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;  persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed… So we do not lose heart. 

Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. ~II Corinthians 4

There is so much hope! There is so much to live for! Loss, grief, pain, tears lessen with time. In the early days, the early months, pain is so raw and so hard. It’s not that it gets easier over time, it just gets further apart. Hope that makes sense. There’s a lot of happy moments to experience.

Some people feel guilty about doing things after a loved one dies. Don’t! It’s ok to have fun again, to celebrate holidays. It’s ok to “move on.” We will miss our loved ones forever. We will think of them forever, wishing they were here again to just live life with us. Our loved ones wouldn’t want us to stop living life just because they are gone.

For Christians after loss, we do not grieve like unbelievers. There is the hope and promise of heaven.

After my toddler died, my grandmother wrote the loveliest of notes and she said, “Abby has obtained what we as Christians all long for.” Yes. The thing about losing a child is that it’s out of order!! A parent shouldn’t have to bury a child. A great-grandparent shouldn’t have to bury a little one. It just doesn’t make sense this side of heaven.

Below is what I wrote to another mom on my blog after she commented shortly after her daughter died. It is what I wish for you too.

I have tears for you, my friend. Your grief is so new. So raw. I am so, so sorry that your precious daughter is gone and no longer with you. I hate this for you. It is ok to smile with your other daughter. You must keep smiling for her. Don’t let her death overwhelm you to the point that you can’t enjoy and care for your living daughter.

I know that it is hard to believe me right now, but this terrible grief lessens with time. Please don’t misunderstand me; you will always love her, you will never ever forget her, you will always miss her, you will always cry for her, but the everyday nitty gritty of life just gets easier.
Her death is not your fault. Let go of the guilt. What is your faith? Can you rest in the Lord? Take this awful journey of deep loss not only one day at a time, but one hour, one moment at a time. It’s so hard; I know because I’ve been there! I am there.. I am here 5 1/2 years later, still crying for my precious daughter, but happy for her new life with Christ.

peace and grace, guinever

Psalm 42

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
    so pants my soul for you, O God.
² My soul thirsts for God,
    for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
³ My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
    “Where is your God?”
⁴ These things I remember,
    as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
    and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
    a multitude keeping festival.⁵ Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
    my salvation and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
    therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
    from Mount Mizar.
⁷ Deep calls to deep
    at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
    have gone over me.
⁸ By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
    and at night his song is with me,
    a prayer to the God of my life.
⁹ I say to God, my rock:
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
    because of the oppression of the enemy?”
¹⁰ As with a deadly wound in my bones,
    my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
    “Where is your God?”

¹¹ Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
    my salvation and my God.