“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” —Psalm 34:18
As I was walking walking alongside Layne/JT during their miscarriage, Layne used the words, “I guess time heals all wounds. Right?”
It did not feel like a rhetorical question. It was more of a plea.
“Time is going to heal this wound, right???”
In that moment, I was faced with the times I’ve said those same words to someone, unknowing how it dismissed their grief. And, as I thought through their pain, their future, and what life might feel like 10, 15, 20 years from now, no, I didn’t think the passage of time would “heal” their wound. However, I did think it had capacity to transform it.
Time doesn’t heal our wounds – it teaches us how to carry them. It doesn’t make the loss smaller; it makes us bigger. Not because we “get over it,” but because we learn to build our lives around the reality of what’s happened. As Megan Devine writes, “You don’t get over loss. You don’t need to get over loss. You need to learn to live alongside it.”
Devine also tells us that “The reality is that the correct heartfelt response to loss is not acceptance, but resistance.” This flies in the face of everything our culture – and sometimes our faith communities – tell us about grief. We’re told to accept, to move on, to find closure. But what if resistance isn’t just natural – what if it’s sacred?
The world often rushes us toward resolution:
“You need to move on.”
“You should be past this by now.”
“Time heals all wounds.”
But scripture tells a different story.
David never stopped lamenting. Job’s restoration didn’t erase his pain. Jesus still bore the scars of crucifixion even after resurrection.
What if healing doesn’t mean forgetting? What if it means learning to carry grief differently?
Living Alongside Grief
If grief is a spiral, then faithfulness isn’t about getting over our losses but about learning how to live with them in a way that honors our love and acknowledges the pain.
So what does that look like?
1. Name What is Still Sacred
Grief is not just about what we lost—it’s also about what we still carry. Love, memories, stories, legacies. These are sacred things, and they don’t disappear just because someone is gone.
What traditions remind you of the person you lost?
What stories still make you laugh?
What parts of them do you still see in yourself?
Naming what is still sacred doesn’t erase the pain, but it reminds us that love never leaves us empty-handed.
2. Give Yourself Permission to Feel (Again and Again)
You will have days where the grief feels light, almost weightless. You will have days where it floors you. Neither means you are doing grief *wrong.*
The world may try to impose a timeline, but Jesus never did. Instead, He entered grief fully—He wept, He mourned, He sat in the depth of sorrow. He never rushed it. Neither should we.
Sometimes healing looks like resistance
Sometimes faith looks like questions
Sometimes love looks like grief
When the waves come, let them come. Sit with them. Let them speak. Because the only way to carry grief well is to let yourself feel it when it comes.
3. Find God in the Questions, Not Just the Answers
Some losses never make sense. Some wounds never fully close. And sometimes, the greatest act of faith is not in having answers, but in trusting that God is still present even when it seems as if there are no answers.
Doubt, pain, and questioning are not signs of weak faith. They are signs of honest faith. And God is big enough to hold it all.
What Time Actually Does
The truth is, time’s real work isn’t healing – it’s teaching. It teaches us:
– How to hold both joy and sorrow in the same hand
– How to build new traditions while honoring old ones
– How to let love grow bigger than loss
When Healing Looks Like Carrying
We may not “move on,” but we do move forward. Not leaving grief behind, but learning to “walk with it” in a way that transforms us.
Because here’s the truth:
The loss may not shrink, but your capacity to hold it will grow.
The grief may not disappear, but you will learn to carry it differently.
The sorrow may remain, but love remains bigger.
And when the waves come—whether it’s been three months or thirty years—you can let them come without fear. Because God is there. Not demanding you move past it, but walking with you. Even carrying you. Through it.
Prayer:
“God of the grieving and the healing, help me to let go of the expectation that I need to be ‘over’ my losses. Teach me instead how to carry them with grace. When the waves of sorrow come, remind me that You are here, holding me in every rise and fall. Let me find You, not just in resolution, but in the questions, the longing, the memories, and the love that never fades. Amen.”