Grief: A Highway of Holiness

I can’t remember where I first heard the phrase, Grief: A Highway of Holiness, but it struck something deep within me. I jotted it down, and over time, the weight of those words has only grown more meaningful.

There will never be a moment in my life when I forget the sacred nearness of God after Melanie’s passing. It wasn’t just comfort – it was divine. It was a holy presence that wrapped itself around my broken heart in a way I had never known. Jesus, who wept at Lazarus’s tomb, understands loss. He is not distant from our sorrow; He enters into it with us.

It is in those sacred days of mourning, when our hearts are broken open, that I believe we walk a highway to holiness. Not because we are holy, but because He is. His holiness meets us in the valley. His presence becomes the pavement beneath our feet. In the numbness and confusion of grief, God doesn’t stand at a distance—He gathers us in His arms, holding us close as we stumble forward.

Even now, years later, it’s hard to fully describe it. But I know God carried me. It wasn’t my strength that got me through those early days – it was His. I look back and still wonder: How did I manage to smile through tears and deliver a eulogy during the celebration of life? The answer is simple and profound: It was never about my endurance – it was always about His presence.

Grief is not a detour from the holy – it can be the very place where holiness meets us most intimately. In the ache of missing someone we love, we walk alongside the Man of Sorrows, who understands. And somehow, in His goodness, He transforms our mourning into something sacred.

The pain may linger, but so does His presence. And that presence makes all the difference.