So happy to welcome Terri DeVries, my good friend and a talented writer, to my blog! You can read more of her journey here. I’m so sorry that she’s having to learn to walk this new path, but I’m so grateful that she shares her heart with us as she walks.

The trim white houses stretch as far as I can see, clones set in a row like soldiers at attention. Each yard is manicured, each drive an exact replica of the others. Mailboxes have no numbers to distinguish one from the rest. Panic overtakes me. Where is he?

I’ve knocked on dozens of doors, but there’s no answer. I’m frantic. Not a soul is in sight—no children playing in the yard, no fathers mowing lawns or trimming hedges, not a single car to be seen on the road. Fear constricts my throat as I try to call his name, but I have no voice. The stillness is eerie. I hurry on, searching for him somewhere on this endless street, searching, searching. Where is he?

I awaken with a start, my heart pounding as my eyes dart around the room. I see the familiar tie-back curtains, the floral throw pillows on the chair. My heart begins to slow, panic recedes, and I tell myself it was just a dream. Slowly, I rise, pull on my robe. It’s Saturday morning. The coffee will be on in the kitchen, the day ours to plan.

But then reality shoves aside my normal, and I’m forced to remember. That comfortable routine is forever gone. My husband isn’t going to be there, and coffee won’t be waiting for me. My normal will never be normal again, at least not in the old way.

He died. That’s the short version of the story. Grief has taken over my days and my nights, all aspects of my life, and it has changed everything. Forever. He’s gone.

I’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember. My parents endured a cruel war in the Netherlands before they brought our family to America in search of a better life, and their first years here were hard. We had little money, but there was an abundance of faith. I remember my father whistling hymns, my mother singing them, sometimes in Dutch and other times in English. I suppose you could say I inherited my faith. I didn’t question God in those formative years. But it didn’t feel real then the way it does now.

Much later, when life began to happen, the soul searching began in earnest. When my daughter was ten, her best friend, Shelly, died of cancer after a long, painful battle. She spent her last three months in the hospital, basically waiting to die, and it was heart-wrenching to see that brave little girl be so sick. I would scream at God with tears streaming down my face on my way to the hospital and again on the way back. I cried, I yelled, I questioned. I was so angry.

God was silent. And Shelly died. How do you reconcile that with the God who loves us?

I researched the word grief. Book after book gave me the clinical “steps of grief.” If I went through the steps, I decideded, then I would be done. But you know what? I never dealt with it. Instead, I allowed my anger and frustration to stuff the grief and then I smugly walked away. All better.

As I look back now I see that God was laying groundwork for me, preparing for this day more than thirty years later. I’m learning to lean in to my grief instead of ignoring it. My husband is gone. I won’t see him again until the day I go to heaven. But God is never going to leave me. It took several months for me to learn this lesson. Initially I was angry, depressed, filled with pure black pain.

There was a glint of hope every now and then, but most of the time I was bleeding grief. Words don’t penetrate that kind of pain, but I found that music can. Slowly, as I heard the words of praise songs I had come to love, the message began to make sense. God loves me. He’s right there beside me, showing the way, holding me up when I can’t walk the path.

I don’t know the why of my husband’s death. But there’s a much bigger picture here than I can see. It’s like that giant tapestry that looks like a tangled mess from below. When you see the right side, the beauty of it is breath-taking. Someday I’ll see the finished tapestry, and I’ll understand. But in the meantime, my job is to trust.

I read somewhere the phrase, “The work of grief.” It’s an appropriate description of a hard event. Yes, grief is hard work, but it can also be something holy. Grief is my way of honoring my husband. It honors the 49 years he was part of my life, it shows evidence of his importance to me.

Make no mistake, it’s messy. It hurts. Sometimes it strangles. Nothing about it is easy. But I’m learning a new meaning to the word joy. It’s not a sense of happiness, or fun. Joy has a much deeper meaning, a gift God gives us if we accept it. Joy is that sense of peace that even on the most painful days, even in “the valley of the shadow of death,” we are not alone.

I’m working through my grief, not just for the loss of my husband, but for the loss of Shelly all those years ago. I don’t expect to get over it. True grief never leaves you. But those sharp edges that cut at you begin to wear down, and gradually the pain dulls and recedes. In its place you begin to feel peace, thankfulness. Grief becomes a companion, always there, but in a good way. And you learn to feel joy.

You see, God knew grief, too. When His son died on the cross, God’s grief was magnified beyond our comprehension. But He did it for love, and who are we to question that?

Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift.