12/15/25: A Balm for a Grieving Heart

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.“ — Psalm 34:18 (NLT)

Grief has a way of making the world feel dimmer.

It slows your steps. It changes your breathing. It makes ordinary moments feel like they’re wrapped in fog. And when you lose someone who mattered, the ache settles in places you can’t explain out loud.

Psalm 34:18 has been swirling around my spirit these past few days. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” There’s something comforting about a God who doesn’t wait for the funeral programs to be tucked away before He steps in. He comes close right in the middle of the ache. Right in the middle of the memories that make your chest tighten. Right in the middle of those long pauses when you’re trying to figure out how to move through a world that has shifted under your feet.

Sometimes grief feels like stretching a muscle you didn’t know you had. It pulls you. It tests you. It forces you to hold tension you never asked for. But just like stretching makes room for new strength, sorrow stretches your spirit in ways you don’t recognize right away. You feel vulnerable. You feel exposed. You feel undone. Yet somehow, God steps into that space and holds it like it’s holy.

Because it is.

I’ve learned that grief is not just about the person you lost. It’s also about the version of you that existed when they were still here. Their presence changed you. It

shaped you. Their absence rearranges you. And God doesn’t dismiss that. He sees every tear that never made it down your cheek. He hears the prayers you couldn’t form. He knows the weight of the memories sitting on your heart.

And He draws near. Quietly. Kindly. Faithfully. He saves you, not by erasing the pain but by walking with you through it. That’s the kind of God who sits with you until the ground feels steady enough to move forward again.

Maybe that’s the hidden gift in this scripture. Not that the brokenhearted avoid breaking. But that they never break alone. God gathers every fragment like He’s piecing together stained glass. And somehow, through time and tenderness, He turns the shattered things into something that holds light again.

So here we are, sis. Holding grief in one hand and God’s nearness in the other. Learning how to breathe. Learning how to remember. Learning how to keep living with love that still lingers. And even though it hurts, we keep going because the One who saves us is sitting right beside us in the ache.