08/17/2026
Some grief arrives with death. Other grief comes quietly through the changing of a relationship, the loss of familiar routines, the limitations of a body, or the realization that someone we love is still here but is no longer able to meet us in the ways they once did.
It may surface when the calendar turns toward a familiar date, when a family tradition changes, when the house becomes quieter, or when life no longer looks the way we believed it would.
Grief does not always announce itself by name. Sometimes it looks like fatigue, irritability, restlessness, forgetfulness, or the sudden need to withdraw. We may think we are simply tired without recognizing that a new season has touched an older wound.
I understand that differently now because I have lived a life marked by many kinds of loss.
I think about the estrangement that remained unresolved when my father died.
I think about phones that once rang frequently but are quiet now—or ring without being answered because someone I love is carrying more than they can explain.
I think about empty seats beside me and ordinary routines that changed because illness, exhaustion, or sorrow altered what someone I love is able to do.
I think about medical equipment standing in a home where we once imagined an entirely different future. I think about sitting with someone I love as tears move down her uncovered face and she wonders aloud whether her health has made her too difficult for anyone else to choose.
I think about how often my mother once called to talk with me about Jesus and the Word. The phone rings less frequently now, and when it does, our conversations remind me that parts of the mother I have always known are becoming harder to reach.
I also remember a much younger version of myself—pregnant, overwhelmed, and in such despair that I did not know whether I wanted to remain in this world.
These losses did not all happen at once, and some of them are not complete. They continue changing shape. They are losses of people, health, relationships, possibilities, familiar conversations, and versions of life I once believed we would have.
I have not suddenly begun experiencing grief.
I have finally begun acknowledging how much grief has accompanied me—both in the past and in the present—because I no longer fear what will happen if I allow myself to feel it.
Isaiah 50:4 says that God awakens us morning by morning and teaches us how to speak a word that sustains the weary.
Perhaps one reason I recognize weariness differently now is because I have stopped running from my own.
Before we can speak faithfully to someone else’s weariness, we must be willing to listen—to God, to one another, and to what may be hidden beneath the words being spoken. Sometimes the person who appears tired is carrying more than fatigue. Sometimes the person who says, “I’m fine,” is trying to hold gratitude and grief in the same trembling hands.
Gratitude and grief are not opposites. They often sit together in the same room.
Isaiah 50 also speaks to those who are walking in darkness without light, telling them to trust in the name of the Lord and lean upon their God.
That is not a command to pretend the darkness is light.
It is permission to lean when we cannot stand upright beneath the weight of what has changed. It is trusting that God’s arms remain underneath us when the arms we long for are unavailable or no longer here. It is believing that even when grief has altered the landscape and we cannot see what comes next, we are not walking through it alone.
Perhaps living this Scripture begins with paying closer attention.
We can notice when an ordinary transition may have awakened an extraordinary loss.
We can make room for grief that has no funeral and losses that remain unnamed.
We can allow someone to speak honestly without rushing to correct their feelings, explain God’s intentions, or push them toward gratitude.
We can say, “You do not have to pretend with me today.”
Isaiah 51:3 reminds us that God looks compassionately upon the ruins. He comforts the devastated places and makes the wilderness like Eden. Joy, thanksgiving, and singing are heard there again.
Not because the ruins never existed.
Not because faithful people do not weep.
But because grief does not frighten God away.
I am learning that I do not have to fear it either.
I can acknowledge what was lost, grieve what is changing, love the people who remain, and trust God to meet me in all of it. I do not have to hurry myself—or anyone else—out of the devastated places.
Perhaps our calling is to awaken morning by morning, listen closely, and learn how to offer a word and a presence that help the weary lean upon God until songs can be heard among the ruins again.
