Grief is a Holy language

Sometimes I tremble at the threshold of a new month. The calendar turns, and with it, the quiet dread rises in me—what fresh breaking will these days hold? The last month felt like walking barefoot across shards of glass. Every square on the page felt sharp, each sunrise slicing me farther from what I lost, farther from the wound that still bleeds. And yet, there’s a grief even in the distance. A strange grief in watching sorrow fade, as if I’m afraid of what will remain of me when the wound begins to close. Who will I be without this ache that has become my shadow? Soon, my days of grieving will outnumber my days of “normal,” and the balance feels unbearable.

But then I remember—You were called a Man of Sorrows. You wore grief like a name, like a mantle. It was not a passing visitor to You; it was Your companion. You were thoroughly acquainted with it, letting sorrow trace every line of Your story. And if I say I want to know You, why should I recoil when grief extends its hand to me? Why should I expect to know Your resurrection, but refuse Your cross? Why should I long for the crown of life, but resist the fellowship of suffering?

Maybe grief, unwelcome as it feels, is one of the holy languages You still speak in. Maybe the breaking is the doorway into the depths of Your heart. Maybe the nights I dread are the very nights You whisper most closely, “I know. I’ve been here too.”

And so, though everything in me trembles, I will step into this next page. The glass still cuts, but I walk with the One whose hands bear scars of His own. If grief must sit at my table, let it sit as a friend who keeps me near to You. If sorrow lingers in the room, let it be a teacher that tutors my heart in resurrection hope.

I may be fluent in the language of grief, but so are You. It’s worth it all to speak the language of the Man of Sorrows.