Time marches on. It doesn’t stop for anyone or anything…no matter how much we want it to. When you’re in the midst of grief, this just seems wrong. Time should stand still. Life can’t possibly go on because that means you’ll have to leave your loved ones behind. It just isn’t possible. Time needs to stop. Life simply can’t change. Letting go just simply isn’t possible.

The emotional cycles of grief are difficult to maneuver. However, I’m continuing to allow myself the grace and time to process each of them as they come. It is getting easier to manage them as I remind myself to grieve healthy I must walk through each one.

While the pain is still there every. single. day., the emotions aren’t as high or as low as they were in the beginning. When I think about that fact, it feels so terribly wrong, like I’m letting her down. In those moments, I stop and remind myself that she wouldn’t want me to live the rest of my life sad or heartbroken. So, I pick myself up and remember the good times we had, the inspiration she was to me and rededicate my life to learning to love Jesus like she did.

How I’m Learning to Grieve with Hope This Week

As time moves on I know that I must begin to pick up the pieces of my life and the responsibilities that I have. Yet, I also know that I can’t simply get back to the way life was before. Life will never be the same for me because a part of me is gone. It left the day I lost her. Life won’t ever be the same because I lost a best friend that was part of every single day of my life.

When I sit down to plan out my daily routine I’m having to take steps to find a new normal because the old normal isn’t possible without her. I will never be able to sit down and chat about what we’re doing today or see her family pictures pop up in my social media feed as I work online. Finding a new normal has a different type of emotional pain attached to it than the initial stages of grief. It is the emotion of letting go of the old you…the old way of life…the life you had with them by your side.

I don’t honestly know what my new normal looks like yet, but I know that I have to find one. I can’t live in this state of painful, emotional turmoil forever. If I don’t take steps to finding a new normal I will be choosing to lose memories again…something she would never want.

How you lose someone greatly affects how you’re going to process that loss. When I lost my grandfather to cancer, we knew it was coming. He went to heaven with Jesus quicker than we thought, but it wasn’t unexpected. Shortly after my daughter was born, I lost my maternal grandfather to a heart attack. It was sudden and completely unexpected. I didn’t get to say goodbye to either of them. Yet, the pain of losing them is so different than what I feel right now.

Grief is as unique to each loss as it is to each person feeling the loss.

It hits you differently and you process it differently each time. Even the ones closest to you don’t understand the depth of your loss.

My husband is my best friend, but there are things that I find extremely difficult right now that I don’t think he understands or realizes. While he hasn’t asked me to actually “get on with life”, at times I feel like he doesn’t understand why I’m not okay and ready to move on. To be honest, I can’t expect him to truly understand because I can’t put into words why I can’t or why I haven’t found a new normal yet.

Right now I am focusing on not rushing or masking the pain. I am walking through it knowing that there is hope. I will make it through this and come out stronger. I need to know how to process grief in a healthy way because this is likely not the last time I will lose someone that I love.

Sabrina Black reminds me that in the midst of grief there is hope and it can be found in God’s Word…

Scripture talks about how the Lord will turn your mourning into dancing, so expect that at some point you will dance again. You will rejoice again, but it is going to take some time to get there.

I’ve known for most of my life that I haven’t ever handled grief properly. That is why I began this journey towards learning to grieve with hope with my besties. We’re in the midst of our book study through Grieving with Hope, by Samuel J. Hodges.

Every week we’ll each be sharing our thoughts on the same chapter. It is our hope and prayer that as we learn to grieve holding tightly to the hope we have in Jesus Christ that others will be encouraged and strengthened that are on their own grief journey.

You can follow my journey towards grieving with hope here.