The One Word You Would Never Use to Describe Loss: Gratitude
Grief entered my life at the early age of eight years old when my dad died suddenly in a car accident, and gratitude was not a word I would have used to describe that loss.
It also wasn’t how I would have described the loss of my mom 15 years later just days before my husband was deploying to Afghanistan. My life has been filled with death and addictions and abuse and hurt and for most of it, I tucked it all away and just continued moving forward, hiding behind “being good” and “doing right” so I could earn favor and approval from others. But the moment I received the phone call that my mom was gone, my world felt like it had collapsed. I could no longer think, see, or even breathe clearly.
A few days after her funeral, I dropped my husband off at the airfield and began the drive home alone. About halfway, the weight of it all finally broke me and I could no longer muster up the strength to be strong. I pulled over, sobbing, and for the first time in my life cried out to God, not politely, not faithfully, but honestly.
“Why?” I asked over and over. “If You’re good, why would You allow this too? You already took my Dad. Now my mom. All this hurt growing up. I’m not even sure if my husband will make it home. How am I supposed to keep going on like this?”
And in the quiet that followed, I sensed a gentle whisper in my heart: One step at a time.
Living in Constant Fear
My circumstances didn’t change in that moment. The grief didn’t disappear. But I made a decision. I put the car back in drive and from that moment on, I simply continued to take one step at a time.
Except, the months that followed felt relentless. Our family continued to experience loss after loss and it felt like we were standing in sinking sand. My brother-in-law passed away. My husband returned to Afghanistan after emergency leave from that funeral and then finally finished the last of his 9 month tour.
We thought we had finally made it through the worst of it and looked forward to some normalcy again. Except, more hardship was just around the corner. An undetected pregnancy loss, the death of my father-in-law, and then my aunt. For 11 months, grief had made a permanent home in our lives. We lived in constant fear, bracing ourselves every time the phone rang.
And yet, this is where gratitude begins to take shape, because we can see now that our grief was where God was meeting us all along.
When Hope Breathes
Along the way, He had been calling us to Him, placing people in our path whose joy and peace were unmistakable; whose lives radiated a light we couldn’t ignore. And it was in the middle of our darkness that their light seemed to shine the brightest. Our curiosity was stirred.
Almost exactly one year after everything began to unravel, on my mom’s birthday, December 3rd of 2014, I saw two faint blue lines on a pregnancy test. Fear still lingered, but hope was slowly learning how to breathe again too. “Could this be the end of the darkness for us? Is this new life the light and joy we’ve been praying for?”
And a few months later, on a cold spring morning, my husband and I walked into a church for the first time, not because we had it all together, but because we didn’t, and we finally decided to look to the One whom others with that bright light for Him said did.
That morning, God felt near. From the moment our tires hit the parking lot, we felt different. We left that morning knowing this was the start of a new life for us and our pursuit to get to know the Lord began.
Six months later, we carried our healthy baby boy through those same church doors. Our rainbow after the storm. And we dedicated the rest of our lives to Him. Fully surrendered. Made new. Redeemed. And ready for a life of pursuing Him with everything we have.
Grateful for the Loss
Today, I can say this with humility and honesty: I am grateful for the grief, not because loss is good, but because God is. Grief became the place where my self-reliance ran out and my need for Him began. It stripped away illusions of control and opened my heart to a relationship I may never have pursued otherwise.
Gratitude for grief doesn’t mean pretending the pain didn’t hurt. It means acknowledging that God can meet us in our deepest sorrow and gently lead us forward, one step at a time.
If you’re walking through grief today, I won’t rush you or tie your pain up with a bow. But I will come alongside you and remind you: God is not absent. He is with you in your pain, sorrow, and grief and I pray my story can be a reminder to you of Romans 8:18 which says, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”
He really does work all things for good and I hope someday to get to read your story of taking just one step at a time. He’s right by your side.
Meet Brooke Collins
Brooke Collins is a military wife, homeschooling mom of three boys, seminary graduate, and founder of The Finding Freedom Co., a faith-based brand helping women steward their time, lives, and calling with intention. Through biblical planning tools, journals, Bible studies and encouragement, Brooke helps women move from drifting to living on purpose with God. She believes God can take even the most painful seasons and turn them into stories of freedom and hope.
Where to find her . . .
Begin Within is a series to inspire a year-round lifestyle of gratitude that will impact not only your own life, but the lives of your neighbors as well. Gratitude is a theme we talk about often around here because it ties so closely into other missional living rhythms. Practicing gratitude reminds to keep our hearts soft and expectant and our eyes open. Therefore, the more we embrace gratitude, the easier it becomes to truly see our neighbors and where we can join what God is already doing in our neighborhoods.
If you would like to contribute to Begin Within, you can find the submission guidelines here.
