Choosing Joy

I often remark that grief can and will soften with time. Even if it’s hard to believe it right now, as you move forward your heart won’t always feel as tender or your grief as intense as it does in the early days, weeks, and months following a loss. When grief shatters our hearts, choosing joy can feel like an impossible choice.

The weight of loss is heavy, and the emptiness left behind can seem unending. In those moments, moving forward feels less like walking and more like crawling through broken glass.

Yet even in the deepest valleys, God whispers a reminder: You are not alone.

Revelation tells us that God is the keeper of our tears — each one precious enough to be collected and remembered. He doesn’t dismiss our pain or rush us through it. Instead, He walks with us, bottle in hand, holding every tear, every sob, every whispered “why?” This means our grief matters to Him, but it also means He has something more for us.

Choosing joy doesn’t mean denying our loss. It’s not pretending the hurt is gone or forcing a smile when our hearts are still aching.

Choosing joy is deciding to let God’s promise of eternity outweigh the heaviness of the present moment.

It’s looking forward to the day when every tear will be wiped away, when we will be reunited with those we love, never to be parted again.

Joy becomes an act of defiance against the darkness. It is saying, “Grief may have wounded me, but it will not define me.” By choosing joy, we allow light to seep into the cracks of our brokenness, and we open ourselves to healing.

We keep moving forward not because the road is easy, but because hope pulls us onward.

We choose joy because our loved ones would want us to live fully until we meet again. And we choose joy because in Christ, sorrow is never the end of the story — resurrection is.