As I continue to move through grief and try to support my family, I have come to realize a few things about grief.

Just as God gives us life and blessings, He also takes it away. It is hard to understand why He takes loved ones from us and leaves us in despair and sadness.  However, He gave us grief and all its stages for us to heal and in turn grow in our faith.  Part of the stages of grief is anger.  He expects us to be angry at Him for the pain we feel.  But He, also, knows He will never abandon us in this anger. The way I see it is, He gives us challenges to offer us places to grow and ways to bring us closer to who we are meant to be.  Throughout our grief, He holds space for us to increase our faith and walk closer to Him.  With each mountain that we climb, or valley we descend in, we bring ourselves closer to Him.  As we heal our traumas and grief, it is His will that we fall fully into His arms and trust in His plan.  In the glory of a healed heart, we are embraced by our faith in God’s arms, forever surrendering to His love and mercy.