There may be days when you feel completely wrung out. But you still go through the motions.

You do the laundry, drop the kids off at school, buy groceries, take out the trash. You smile at people who smile at you.

But it almost feels like an out-of-body experience because you’re not fully present.

The last two weeks have been emotionally exhausting for us as a family. If someone took a soppy, wet sponge and squeezed it really hard till every drop of water was expelled — that’s kind of how it has been.

Two weeks ago, my husband’s dad went to be with Jesus. He was 69 years old and perfectly healthy, so the suddenness of his passing and the void he has left in our lives feels like a punch in the gut that came out of nowhere.

But even as we grieve, we do not grieve without hope. Our hope is real. It is distinctive. It is grounded in truth. It is a certainty.

We sometimes use the word “hope” as a flimsy feeling. A whiff of a chance. A possibility that, fingers crossed, may or may not happen.

But Biblical hope is based entirely on the words of a good God who cannot lie. It is based entirely on the love of a gracious God who gave His life so we may live forever.

We know, with complete certainty, that one day my husband will meet his dad again and our kids will play with their beloved gampa again.

Yet, the pain is real. And the peace? The peace is real too.

We live in a place where we’re broken — but we also experience that God is close to the brokenhearted.

We live in a place where we mourn — but we also know the comfort of God.

We live in a place where we weep — but we are loved by a God who weeps with us.

We live in a place where we feel somewhat isolated — but we know that we’re never alone because we have a God who sits with us in our grief.

In the last two weeks, we’ve had friends and family who’ve come alongside us in prayer, sending us meals, helping with funeral arrangements, simply being there- along with tears, droplets of grace have drenched our lives.

I know that while the grief won’t ever fully go away, one day God will give us “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness…” (Isaiah 61:3).

Friend, I don’t know what kind of loss you’re experiencing — the death of a loved one, the end of an identity, a dream that can never be revived — but God knows and He gives you permission to feel because He created you with emotion.

But He also reminds you that He is Immanuel — God with you, in your emotional exhaustion.

He walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. He sits with us in our sorrow. The eternal God is our refuge and underneath it all are His everlasting arms.

 

 

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