on healing…

Grieving is hard and messy and unorganized. It’s something you never ask or wish you have to do because if you have to grieve, that means tragedy rocked your world. Healing happens slowly in your heart and then your heart breaks apart over and over again. It’s going great one minute and the next it’s failing. It’s completely collapsing on the couch when you get home and try not to remember anything. It’s not magical or pretty. Grieving is completely draining and exhausting.

Sometimes it really is easier to sit back and watch the world go by… to be angry at why the sun still rises and why the world still turns without your loved one here on Earth. Believe me I get it. I wonder the same thing.

But the real healing… that can only come from engaging in life again. You can be with others during this time but, at the end of the day you have to walk your own path -at your own pace- with your own intense pain and your own wide open wounds. You have to do this one by yourself. On this path, your heart will be in a million tiny pieces and you have to pick them all up and figure out how to put them all back together. But the good news is that there, in your broken heart, your loved one lives on. 
It’s the time to lean on God as much as possible. 
To know He is still good. 
To know your loved one is in His arms now.

It’s nothing you get can ever get over, it’s just a new normal you unfortunately 

have to face without wanting to. Try to soak up every moment as much as you can with your people, etch the memories in your heart so you can remember it when you need to. It hurts because love leaves a mark, it’s supposed to. 

Remembering them is easy. I’m sure you do it everyday. But missing them is the tough part. That heartache never goes away and sometimes a tear or two slip from your eye.

But whenever you miss them, remember how lucky you were to know them, be thankful to God that He put them in your life and all of the incredible moments you’ve shared.

Life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. 
But it does go on. 
Healing does happen. 
They are looking down on you through it all.