It’s not that bad

“It’s not so bad,” they say.

“It’s not so bad,” like a lullaby meant to quiet a crying child.

Like a phrase smooth enough to lay over the sharp places and pretend the bleeding has stopped.

But you don’t know that.

You are not inside my mind

where the echoes live.

Where memories don’t ask permission before arriving.

Where grief doesn’t knock,

it collapses the door and makes itself at home.

You don’t hear the way the day sounds louder without what I lost.

You don’t feel the weight of carrying a smile

while something heavy presses on my chest.

You don’t see how I rehearse strength in the mirror before stepping into rooms that expect me to be “okay.”

“It’s not so bad,” they say,

but they aren’t the ones lying awake at night

counting breaths, wondering how something unseen can ache this loudly.

You don’t know that I’m fighting a war with no bruises.

That I’m standing in a field of unanswered prayers, trying to believe the silence is not abandonment.

That faith, for me right now,

doesn’t look like victory—

it looks like staying.

Some days, staying feels like resurrection.

Other days, it feels like crucifixion.

And still,

God meets me here.

Not with explanations.

Not with platitudes.

But with presence.

He does not say, “It’s not so bad.”

He says, I see you.

He does not rush me past the pain.

He sits with me in it,

close enough that my tears fall on His feet.

Maybe this grief is not a sign of weakness

but proof of love.

Maybe this breaking is not the end

but the place where something truer is being formed.

Maybe the weight I carry

is not meant to crush me

but to anchor me deeper into Him.

So let them say what they need to say.

Let them simplify what they cannot carry.

As for me—

I will tell the truth.

I will honor the ache.

I will trust that even here,

even now,

God is doing something holy

inside a heart that hurts.

And if healing comes slowly,

let it come honestly.

I am not weak for grieving.

You may not know what lives in my mind—

but God does.

And somehow,

that is enough to carry me

through another day.