Grief comes to us for different reasons. Burying someone we love. Sending our first born to kindergarten. Signing the divorce papers. Packing our child’s room for college. Returning to work after years of staying at home.
Try-hard girls, we all experience loss and grief, yet so many of us push it away. So I have two questions for us in our grief: why do we run and where is God?
Why do try-hard girls run from grief?
Grief is found at the intersection of accepting our reality and letting go of expectations. This intersection is one we do our best to avoid by using one of these four tactics:
1. We get really busy.
We believe that if we’re busy enough, grief can’t find us. Staying in motion is the key to outrunning our tears. We forget the truth that grief will always find us, but until it does, our sadness leaks out in other ways.
2. We tell ourselves to be strong.
We believe that we’re supposed to be strong and show strength for other people. We tell our hearts to just get on with it. We forget the truth that, in God’s economy, there are no “strong ones,” only little girls who need the comfort of their Daddy’s lap.
3. We promise ourselves we’ll deal with it later.
We believe that, at some time in the future, we’ll have a moment to sit down and have that good, ugly, cathartic cry we’d secretly like to have right now. But there’s real life happening, so maybe we’ll have time on June 2, 2027. We forget the truth that tells us God comforts those who mourn.
4. We look at the bright side.
We believe that we don’t have the right to mourn. If we’re sad about a loss, doesn’t that mean God is wrong or that we’re ungrateful for all the years we did have? We tell ourselves to be thankful and count our blessings. We forget the truth that there’s room in God’s kingdom for grief.
Oh try-hard girls, we are masters at evading grief…maybe because we wonder where God is in it.
Where is God in the midst of our grief?
We might be secretly afraid that God isn’t in the grief, that it’s ours alone to bear, or that, surely, a good God can’t be found in something so ugly.
And this is where we are wrong, sweet friends—God is found at the center of our grief.
God is found comforting us.
When our heart is hurting, our mind can’t focus and our shame takes over, let’s go to Him with our hurting hearts. When we invite Him into our grief, we’ll find God:
- Holding our hand (Isaiah 41:13)
- Catching our tears (Psalm 56:8)
- Collecting our prayers like incense (Revelation 8:4)
- Weeping with us (John 11:35)
God may sit silent in our grief, but He is always near. Not for one second are we alone.
God is found as our safe place.
When our brain tells us to buck up, when our body can’t move swiftly because of the disease building inside, and when our heart is as heavy as the boxes we load into our son’s college U-Haul, we know our world is out of control. Because of this, we need a safe place. When we remember that God is our safe place, we’ll find Him:
- Keeping us safe (Psalm 4:8)
- Providing refuge for us (Proverbs 30:5)
- Protecting us (2 Thessalonians 3:3)
God may not be a physical place where we go, but His arms and ears are always open to us.
God is found as our practical guide through grief.
When we just can’t think of the next right step and our emotions spiral out of control, God is there with us in our day-to-day struggles. When we remember that God cares about our right-now life, we’ll find Him giving us wise counsel and reminding us to:
- Get something to eat (Luke 8:55)
- Get dressed (John 11:44)
- Get together with people you love (Luke 7:15)
God may not speak audibly to you the minute you ask, but He cares about your physical, emotional, and mental well-being. He wants you to take care of you.
Grief comes to us for all different reasons. Try-hard girl, we push grief away because we’re busy being busy, staying strong, telling ourselves that “later” is the answer, and to look on the bright side. We believe that God has no place in our grief. But the truth is that in our grief, God comforts us, is our safe place, and guides us through it.
As long as we live on earth, grief will be a part of our experience. What if instead of pushing it away, we allowed God to meet us in the midst of it?
