Comfort in Grief

Grief has no schedule, and anyone who hands you one has not been where you are. It arrives in waves, at the supermarket, in a song, at the sound of a name. You do not move on from it. You learn, slowly, to carry it.

This verse does not explain. Scripture is remarkably restrained about explaining loss. What it offers instead is a location: near. When you are at your least composed, least prayerful, least able to find any words at all — that is precisely where God is standing.

You do not have to be strong today to be held. You do not have to understand it. You do not have to be grateful yet. You are allowed to simply be crushed, in the company of the One who stays.

If the weight of it has stopped you eating, or sleeping, or getting out of bed at all — please tell someone. A doctor, a counsellor, a friend who will sit with you. Asking for help is not a failure of faith. It is one of the braver things a person ever does.

Some days all you can manage is to get through the afternoon. Then getting through the afternoon is enough. That, too, is faith.