When we do what Father God designed us to do, we experience joy. Joy in the midst of grief happens when we accept the changing of wineskins from old to new. It doesn’t get rid of the grief but it does mean that we are trusting God and His plans for our future. … More Receiving God’s New Wine After Loss
After Nancy left, the silence was deafening. I sharply felt the absence of Ralph in every silent moment. I turned on the television or music to stop from hearing the silence. To this day, more than two years since God took Ralph, I still haven’t fully recovered the joy of silence. … More When the Silence is Deafening, How Can You Pray?
God appreciates our tearful prayers, because they mean we’re being honest with Him and with ourselves. Such prayers come from a passion deep within. Not only are they offerings of grief, like precious diamonds for God, but they are also an act of surrender. … More Your Tears Are Precious to God: Weeping and the Comfort of Community
Go home my love, go home my love
To the place where you belong.
You’re home my love, you’re home my love
Because you were so strong. … More Go home, my love
Grief is a scar that we forever carry. The healing is different for each person. You wouldn’t tell a person who broke their leg, “It’s been a week, get up and walk now.” Yet, we place that unrealistic expectation on ourselves in the healing process of grief. If your grief still feels like an open wound, it’s not time to get to work cleaning out their clothes, you need more healing first. … More Grief Healing: Deciding When to Sort Through Their Items
Father’s Day now holds both a void and a vessel—while absence lingers, I lean fully into the presence of the One who has never left. Only our Father in Heaven can fill what’s been emptied—left void, and He does so not with noise or fanfare, but with quiet, everlasting nearness. We are not left to navigate this alone—for “you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption” (Romans 8:15). … More When the Fathers are Gone, the Father Remains
We can try to ignore it. Pretend it’s not there. Push past the ache, the silence, the traditions that no longer feel the same without the ones who helped build them. But I promise—if we don’t give grief space, it will find its way out in another form. … More Take All the Time You Need