In my daily trek through social media, I recently saw a couple of posts that got me thinking about grief and healing, and I knew I needed to share them here. It began simply: "How have tears brought healing to your soul?" It immediately reminded me of a study I once read about the healing power of grief and tears...but it also brought to mind a string of moments from my own life. Heartbreak and hope, scars and strength. Acceptance and grace.
Too often, grief doesn’t show up the way we expect it to. Too often, it's a weight in your chest that you can’t quite name, slowly rewriting your story with emotional growth you might not have felt quite ready for.
I’ve been processing pain myself lately, practicing letting go and trying to find peace in God's timing...but this situation hits different. It's a personal ache I can't change and don't know how to fix. I'm grieving, holding onto dwindling hope in a bond I thought was unbreakable. And even with the promise of beauty from brokenness and purpose in pain, grief demands to be felt.
But understanding grief means holding onto this: grief reminds us that the emotions were real, that something mattered. And comfort in grief is rooted in realizing that we can hold on to the good, even if we're learning through loss. Because as you'll see in the story below, emotional healing isn’t about forgetting. Releasing the past and moving forward with self-compassion are where we find hope again.
Trembling, I search the shadows, fists clenched, struggling to breathe in silence. I know this place.
It isn’t real, not the way the world outside is real. But here, waiting in the war-torn wilderness of Heartache, the coming battle is as tangible as the blood in my veins and the sweat seeping from my pores. The ground trembles; the air thickens. My body tenses, fighting the instinct to run. There is no running here.
It emerges from the shadows, massive and inevitable. Dark eyes staring steadily, the hairy knuckles of massive hands dragging the ground. The primate screams...and his name is Grief. I should be used to him by now—we’ve fought before. But he never really goes away.
The first blow comes fast, surprising despite our history. A strike to the ribs: flashbacks to the family I dreamed of. A slap tears a line of gouges in my skin: memories of betrayal and loss. The gorilla pounds his chest, screaming again, and it is the sound of aching absence, the shattering of something that should have been unbreakable.
I stagger backward, terrified, but won't fall. Not yet. My guard is up. I've learned. This isn’t my first time here.
Grief lunges again, hairy knuckles cracking against my jaw. My vision blackens, then returns. The sting of rejection oozes from the inside of my bitten cheek. But Grief isn't finished yet. He pounds the ground with closed fists, roaring now, shaking the earth beneath my feet. My balance gone, my knees buckle under the bitterness of stripped value, of knowing I tried, knowing I loved. Knowing it wasn’t enough.
Fearing it will never be enough.
I'm losing. Gasping, desperate for air, for relief. For something to hold onto. But Grief doesn’t stop. It presses in, merciless, pinning me under the weight of inescapable loss.
But then—a voice whispers in the dark. "Don't forget the girl." And the words aren’t mine. My heart thumps slowly, aching but reliable; I turn my head.
The little girl is where she's always been. Just beyond the battle. Watching with wide, knowing eyes, the hem of her nightgown flapping in the breeze. She is me.
But she’s her own person, too. The child who believed that love was enough, that family could be forever, that she could choose to create something beautiful. Shimmering tears, carving tracks through the dust on her face, tell me she still believes.
A fresh ache blooms in my chest, but it’s different now. Not loss, but recognition. I'm not just fighting for myself. I'm fighting for her.
Gritting my teeth, I plant my hands on the ground. My arms shake as I climb to my feet, each breath a desperate gasp, my body begging me to give in. But I won't. I can't.
The gorilla watches my struggle. Silent. Waiting. It doesn't attack. Because Grief never truly wins anyway. It only lingers.
Relieved, I realize that I don't have to beat it. I only need to keep standing. I step forward, and suddenly the gray edges of Heartache blur, twist, and fade away—the shifting perspective opening the way to freedom. For now.
A broken woman takes the hand of the child. They are parts of me: the scarred hopeful, the mourning lover, embracing emotions while releasing the past.
The pair limp together into the distance, supporting each other. I turn to the light, moving toward healing. And though these past selves might never hear my whispered promise, I speak the words anyway. "I am proud of both of you. Your pain will not be wasted. And even if you're stuck in this place forever...I'll tell your story."
*****
Grief may linger, but we don't have to give it the final word. Some battles don’t go the way we want...but the victory lies in standing anyway, trusting the process, choosing to keep going. And for me, winning is holding onto faith in Jesus, who has my back no matter where the battlefield is.
This week, I needed that reminder. While I did fight my way through another round of emotional growth this week, I didn’t finish editing STILL FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM. I'm frustrated because I wanted to be finished by now. I had a plan. I had a schedule, a goal. And I fell behind.
The good news is that missing my own expectations doesn’t really mean I’ve failed, no matter how much I beat myself up over it. Grace means taking time to acknowledge that my writing is still mostly on track. Joy is anticipation, celebrating that FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM is nine weeks away from release. And no reader will ever know which paragraphs I rewrote umpty-billion times before I loved them.
So, I’m reminding myself—and you, my friends—that progress counts and perfection is not required. Slow steps still move us forward, and sometimes setbacks are a necessary part of the process. What matters most isn't how long it takes. Real success is found in the determination to...