Sadness

It’s been a few years since I miscarried my first baby, and still I find myself crying about it for no specific reason. It’s not necessarily when a specific song starts playing or a milestone date passes. Often, the tears follow a moment that looks outwardly full of joy. And still, there is just a quiet, aching sadness.

It takes me by surprise, not because grief is unfamiliar, but because I often feel like I have moved through processing the loss. I assume I have cried all the tears I needed to cry. But the sadness comes and goes without warning.

During the season immediately following my loss, I read A Hole in the World by Amanda Held Opelt. She shares reflections of a string of losses in her own life, and what stayed with me was her reminder that grief needs physical space. Sometimes that space is a candle, a meal, a letter, a shared silence. Rituals are how we say: This mattered.

I didn’t have a formal ritual at the time, but I’ve come to believe the sadness itself was a kind of ritual. My tears were love trying to find its way out. Today’s Scripture reminds us: Jesus wept too. Jesus didn’t skip over sorrow; he stepped into it. He cried.

Maybe you need that reminder as much as I do today–that our sadness isn’t too much for God. That sadness doesn’t disqualify us from hope or faith or joy. And that mourning doesn’t mean I’m stuck in what should be in the past; it just means I’m human.

“Blessed are those who mourn.” You are not broken and even with a heavy heart, you are Blessed.

If you find yourself in a season of sadness, or if sorrow visits you unexpectedly, I hope you know you’re not alone. Sadness can be a doorway to compassion, to deeper love, and to the comfort of a Savior who knows that sometimes all we can do is simply weep