One of the hardest parts of grief is realizing that life has started moving forward for everyone else, while you’re still carrying the loss every single day. People go back to work. Conversations shift. Life slowly returns to normal. But for those who are grieving, nothing feels normal anymore. Even when you are surrounded by people who care about you, grief can create a quiet kind of isolation that few truly understand. In the early days after a loss, support often comes in

Why You’re So Tired — And It’s Not Weakness If you are walking through grief and feel constantly tired, please hear this: you are not lazy, unmotivated, or lacking faith. You are carrying something heavy. Grief is not only emotional. It is physical. It is mental. It is spiritual. And it is exhausting. You may experience: Emotional fatigue. Feeling “on” for others drains you. Smiling when your heart aches takes energy. Brain fog. Forgetting appointments. Struggling t

To the one who thought you’d be stronger by now — this is for you. This past week held both tender tears and quiet celebration. The tender tears came as I walked through another anniversary of the day my sweet Melanie ran ahead to Heaven. And while time has moved forward, love has not diminished. Grief still whispers her name in the ordinary moments. And scars still speak. But the week was also marked in quiet celebration of the release of my new book, When Scars Become Sto

Six years ago today, my world changed in ways I never could have imagined. It was the day my sweet Melanie ran ahead to Heaven. And even now, six years later, I miss her as much today as I did the first moment I realized she no longer breathed the air on this earth. Time has not softened that truth. Love does not diminish simply because days turn into years. There are still moments when I long to hear her voice, to see her smile, to watch her move through the world in the w

A few years ago, I realized something that surprised me: the anticipation of the anniversary is often harder than the actual day itself. If you’ve noticed this too, you’re not imagining it—and you’re not failing at grief.

When we think of grief, the first emotion that often comes to mind is sadness. And while sadness is certainly part of the journey, it is far from the whole picture. Grief is not a single note—it is a symphony of emotions, layered and complex, rising and falling in ways that can take us by surprise.

I’ve often thought that grief can feel like a heavy shadow that refuses to lift. In the early days of loss, it may seem impossible to imagine a future where happiness could exist again. Every breath feels weighted, every step exhausting. Yet even in the deepest valleys, God plants something that has the power to keep us moving forward: hope.

Grief can feel like waking up inside a nightmare that doesn’t end when the sun rises. It’s as if time itself slows down, trapping you in moments that others move past easily.