This is not only grief from losing Grant. It is grief from the last six years. It is grief from before that, too. I think this is the first time I have been able to look at all of it and put a small part of it into words.
Can you capture grief in a photo?
I don’t know.
This photo, though, helps me describe grief.
The blue sky.
Sunlight breaking through thin clouds.
The woods off in the distance, with bright green alfalfa surrounding the trees.
Then there is the field in the forefront.
Cut down.
Messy.
Barren.
Broken pieces remain of what once filled the field.
The field is full of what is left after something living has been taken away.
The messy field. Is that not grief?
We are the broken pieces. Our lives are full of what is left after something living has been taken away.
What about the beauty in the picture? How is that any part of grief?
I think it is part of grief because not every single day is 100% that messy, broken field. There are parts of the day that make me smile and laugh. Times when I can look up, breathe deeply, and know that God is still good.
I can glance around and see that beauty remains while I am standing in the midst of the broken and ugly—when life looks nothing like I thought it would.
I stand in that place, and a massive truth floods my heart:
Grief does not have to be a space that is emptied before joy is allowed to show up again.
Joy showing up does not mean grief has fully gone away. It does not mean I have forgotten what caused the grief. I do not miss the person any less.
Joy showing up looks like, somehow, God giving me tiny pieces of light in the middle of the hard, dark space I am in.
Joy is not always there when I am standing in the middle of that field, looking at what it was. There are so many times I see all the pieces left behind, and I am angry. I feel as empty as the field, missing what used to be there.
Grief is a full-on, never-ending rollercoaster. One minute, I am staring at the bright blue sky and wispy clouds. The next, I am staring down at the broken ground beneath my weary feet.
That is what makes grief so exhausting. Grief does not always announce itself before it arrives. It can meet me in an ordinary moment—while I am driving, folding laundry, laughing with my family, or looking at a field on a morning walk.
One minute, I feel like I am finding my footing again. Then, BAM, a memory or a thought pulls me right back into the ache.
Faith fills my heart as I realize part of faith is believing that an empty field does not mean it is finished doing its job. God is not going to waste the field, even if none of it makes sense on this side of heaven.
I do not believe God caused the losses that brought grief into my life. I do believe He allowed me to walk through things I never would have chosen—and He has not left me to walk through them alone.
He has been present in every hard season, even when I could not feel Him or understand what He was doing.
At the same time, He does not leave me in the confusion. He can take the ground that has been beaten and broken down by grief and continue doing His work in it. He can meet me in the places I thought could never hold anything good again.
I have no idea what God is doing beneath the surface. I probably will never understand why any of this had to happen. I think I will always have questions and tears and days when the loss almost feels unbearable.
But God.
God is still present in barren places.
He does not wait for the field to look beautiful before He comes near—He has always been there. God can bring life from what feels broken and unfixable.
This is the hard part that comes next.
For the field to become beautiful and life-filled again, it has to go through some things first. The plow comes through and breaks up that hard crust. The planter comes with the seeds. Those seeds need water, sunshine, and time.
For a while, nothing may look different about the field.
As time moves forward, tiny sprouts of life begin to appear again. They do not change what had been there before, but somehow, they remind you that you’re going to be okay.
Grief is like that for me. There is no quick fast-track through it. I cannot pretend the loss did not happen. Yet God is still doing a work in the ground of my heart, even if all I can see is the mess. I can trust Him to provide what I need, in His timing—even on the days I cannot yet see what He is growing.
God stays close to my heart, even when it is hurting. I can truly rest in trusting that when grief feels like the end of something, God is still writing my story—a story bigger than anything I can see right now.
The field may look empty today.
But it is not without hope for tomorrow.
“Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.”
— Psalm 126:5
💙 ap
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