Grief doesn’t always arrive loud.
For me, it came as a phone call. No warning, no sign in the sky. Just a moment that split my life into before and after, and from that day on, everything I thought I understood felt blurry.
When my mom passed, I didn’t only lose her. I lost the person who prayed the loudest for me. The one who could hear fear in my voice before I admitted I was afraid. The one who anchored my world so quietly that I never realized how much she was holding until she was gone.
If you’ve ever lost someone who felt like proof that God cared, this one is for you.
When you confuse functioning with healing
Here’s something I had to learn the hard way: you can be falling apart and still look completely fine.
I went to work. I answered texts. I showed up on Sunday, stared at the cross, and felt nothing. And the whole time I told people, “God’s got it” while quietly breaking on Monday.
So let me ask you gently: Are you actually okay, or are you just still functioning?
Those are not the same thing. We’ve been taught to treat showing up as proof of healing. But sometimes showing up is just the last thing grief hasn’t taken yet. There’s no shame in admitting the difference. There’s only freedom in it.
When you forget how to pray
Nobody warns you that grief can take your words. I used to talk to God so easily, open, honest, no filter. But after she passed, I’d start with “God…” and then nothing. Just silence. And that silence got so loud it started to feel like guilt, like maybe I’d used up all my prayers begging Him not to take her.
I can still hear her saying it from across the kitchen table, not in a sermon voice, just a mother's voice:
“Baby, God still hears the tears you don’t speak.”
That changed everything. Because Scripture actually makes room for the days when all you have is a sigh, the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Not poems. Not perfect sentences. Groans.
So here’s the question to sit with: What if your silence has been a conversation the whole time? What if the tears you couldn’t put into words were already a prayer, and God was already listening?
When pain becomes the teacher
Pain moved into my life like a roommate who never paid rent. It sat across from me at breakfast. It followed me into every room of my soul. And for a long time, I tried to outrun it. I’ll be honest, when I read “count it all joy” in the middle of that, I wasn’t just unconvinced. I was offended. Joy felt dismissive, like someone telling you to look on the bright side at a funeral. So I argued with God about it. Quietly, respectfully, but honestly.
And He didn’t strike me down. He didn’t say “watch your tone.” He just stayed.
Over time, I understood what I’d missed: the verse never called the pain itself joyful. It said the pain produces something. Joy wasn’t the feeling. Joy was what would be left in me once the storm passed — the root system that would keep me standing. So before you rush past your own pain, ask: What is this trying to grow in me that comfort never could?
The faith she left me
Here’s what I’ve come to believe.
I didn’t lose my mom’s faith when I lost her. I inherited it. Every time I sit with God now, unsure, quiet, imperfect, I’m sitting in something she planted long before I knew I’d need it. Every honest, unfancy prayer I whisper is me walking in her legacy. Losing her is what brought me back to God. And walking with God now keeps alive the faith she spent her life planting in me. I don’t ask why anymore. These days, I just say thank you. Thank you for the love that shaped me. For the pain that grew me. For the faith that still holds.
One step, while God holds the rest
If your faith got lost somewhere between heartbreak and healing, I understand. You don’t have to find your way all at once. You don’t need the perfect prayer or a tidy explanation that makes the loss make sense. Maybe today the only step is this: stop pretending you’re fine, and let God meet you in the truth instead. Because faith doesn’t mean you never shake. It means you stay rooted when you do. God was never waiting for you to get over it. He was waiting to walk through it with you.
This is Unmoved & Rooted.
Faith that doesn’t rush.
Faith that holds… even when everything shakes.
If this met you somewhere tender today, don’t rush away from it. And if you’re walking through your own valley, I’d love to hear from you, share how God has been meeting you in the comments, even just a few words. We’ll keep having these conversations. God’s not done writing your story.