A Grievous Heart

Throughout 2019 and 2020, I lost a few loved ones. For a while, my own happiness just didn’t feel right to me. Why do I get to enjoy life when they no longer can?

After each loss, it became even harder for me to enjoy happy moments. My heart hurt from grief, and my heart hurt even more for the ones closer to them than I was. I was in the strangest place then—familiar with sorrow, but unfamiliar with how to move forward.

I developed an intense fear of losing everyone I loved within a short span of time, because at that point, it seemed to be happening around me. To this day, even though I no longer possess that irrational fear, I sometimes prepare myself for the worst news possible. Other times, I water down my happiness as if I’m bracing myself for a crash landing.

In the midst of grief, how do we hold on to happy moments? How do we avoid taking them for granted?

That was the difficult part for me. Sadness, along with the guilt of moving on, would slightly pull me back every time I felt joy—almost as if grief wanted to remind me that things would not always be this way. At the time, I didn’t realize what I was doing.

Now I understand that the Spirit of the Lord does not bring sadness. It brings comfort. And to reject His comfort is to quench the Spirit—to suppress the power and benefit of the Holy Spirit within us.

I recalled 1 Thessalonians 5:19 and 21, where believers are instructed not to quench the Spirit and to hold on to what is good.

When God provides moments of happiness in the midst of heartbreaking circumstances, hold on to them. Allow them to remind you of what once was, and what will be again through Christ. Even in the midst of a storm, holding onto what is good encourages us to keep moving forward.

As we know, the evil forces that be do not wish to see us prosper. You may experience a season of heartbreak allowed by God—ultimately meant to transform you—yet forged by the enemy to destroy you.

The enemy does not want you to find and hold onto moments of happiness in trials and tribulations, because those moments bring hope. Happiness in sorrow is a spiritual rebellion against despair.

Scripture shows us that it’s okay to be sad. Even Jesus wept when He stood before Lazarus’ tomb. He knew He had the power to raise Lazarus from the dead, yet He wept before He restored.

The miracle that followed—the resurrection—reveals something beautiful:

loss + faith = restoration

Faith restores the grieving heart.

A friend of our family passed away this morning. Daily I prayed for her complete healing. I can never be angry with God, because I know that everything He does and allows flows from love.

I realize now that in allowing her to pass on, He did answer our prayers. He made her whole again. He knew that wholeness was not meant to be found here, but with Him—where she is fully healed, restored, and transformed in His presence.

We serve a mysterious God. His ways are beyond our ways, and His thoughts beyond our thoughts. All we can do is submit to His will for life, trust His timing, and believe that every one of us will meet a prosperous end.

P.S. — During that season of my life, there was a random day when I felt happiness without limits. It was one of the most pivotal days of my life. I realized then that the happiness I longed for exists.

I had been under a dark cloud for so long, and it was as if God allowed me to experience that day so that I would later search for it again—but this time through Him. And eventually, I did. I found what I had been looking for.

Scriptures to reflect on:

Read the book of John Chapter 11 verses 1-44 (The Story of Lazarus)

2 Corinthians 1:3

He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.

1 Thessalonians 5:21

19) Do not quench the Spirit. 20) Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21) but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22) reject every kind of evil.

Isaiah 55:8-9

8) “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord. 9) As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Mathew 7:7-8

Ask, Seek, Knock

7) Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8) For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.