Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Send us a text Have you ever felt completely alone in your grief, like no one could possibly understand the pain you're carrying? That's exactly where I found myself eight years ago when I lost my childhood best friend on the day of my senior prom. Grief isn't just about losing people—it's about losing stability, normalcy, and moments we can never get back. In this deeply personal episode, I'm opening up about my journey through loss and the profound loneliness that often accompanies grief. ...
Facing trauma is a challenging journey, but I share my story with the hope that it might inspire you to gather the strength to take a step toward progress. Remember, with the presence of Christ, there are no limits to what you can conquer.
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome
back to another episode of the
Well, where I'm your host, drew
Gabrielle.
I'm so happy that you've chosen
to click on the podcast today.
I want to start by saying that
this podcast episode was not
planned.
However, I do feel like it is
necessary.
I have a lot of notes that I'm
going to be reading from,
because this is a delicate,
sensitive subject, and I want to
make sure that I am speaking to
everything that God has given
to me for you who is listening.
So bear with me as we go
through this.
This one is very personal and,
yeah, I just want to speak from
the heart.
So, to every single person
listening who has ever
experienced grief or sat in
silence because of it or felt
unseen or wrestled with God in
the process of their grief, this
episode is for you.
So, grief I want to talk about
not just the loss of people, but
the loss of stability, the loss
of normalcy, the loss of
moments you never get back
because of grief, and I also
want to touch on how grief can
impact our faith and what it
looks like to move forward
without forgetting those that
we've lost.
This week marks the eight-year
death anniversary of my
childhood best friend.
He passed away on the day of my
senior prom, and I remember
that day clear as day.
I found out the news right
after I woke up that morning and
I immediately went onto social
media and saw his face and the
hashtag with RIP.
And I remember literally
falling to my knees in the
bathroom and I was crying so
hard that I had to cover my
mouth because I didn't want to
wake up my family, and I
remember that moment being very,
very traumatizing for me.
It felt like I was in some sort
of dream or fog, and I can
remember feeling like everything
was just like slowing down all
at once and I don't know.
I just it felt like I had been
thrown into this new world where
everything changed and nothing
made any sense at all.
My friend and I had grown up
together, we had gone through
middle school together, high
school together and just like
that, his life was taken and
this loss honestly shattered
something inside of me and I
didn't know where to put the
pain that I was experiencing.
I didn't know how to put the
pain that I was experiencing, I
didn't know how to talk about it
and what ended up surprising me
the most about the season of
grief that I had just now
entered into was how alone I
felt in it.
Like the silence that follows
after you lose a person is
almost louder than the grief
itself, and I honestly felt like
I couldn't talk to anyone in
the way that I wanted to or in
the way that I felt like I
needed to, and that's just
because of like how he died and
because of the circumstances
surrounding his death.
I felt very stuck between two
different worlds, because on one
side, I had people in my life
who didn't approve of who he was
connected to and on the other
side I had people who did.
And somewhere in the middle of
all of that there was me
grieving in silence and I can
remember actually even bringing
up his name to someone in
conversation and the look on
this other person's face when I
mentioned their name.
It was just like this look of
just shame and disgust and
almost like why are you
mentioning this person in my
face?
Like I had no idea that like
this ran so deep.
You know, I just knew that like
I was grieving and I was sad
and like I wanted to talk about
it.
You know, I just knew that like
I was grieving and I was sad
and like I wanted to talk about
it.
You know, and I feel like that's
a lot of like my processing
when it comes to grief or
anything really in life, like
I'm a talker, I like to yap Like
I got to talk about it, to get
it out.
Talking helps me heal, so in
that moment I just like
completely shut down and it made
me feel like my grief was
something that I had to now hide
.
It was something that, like I
couldn't even bother honoring
out loud, so I just stopped
talking about it.
Really, like I felt like I had
no other choice.
So I just internalized
everything and, if I remember
correctly, I think I only shared
pieces of it with, like a close
friend of mine at the time, my
twinly.
She knows who she is if she's
listening.
But other than that, I had
school counselors and I had God
and that was it.
But even with God, there were
moments where I felt very angry,
I felt very confused, I felt
very lost.
I didn't know how or why this
happened.
I'm sitting here trying to make
sense of it and, mind you, all
of this came during graduation
season.
I was graduating high school.
This was a time where my world
was already changing and there
were so many transitionings
happening at once.
Everything was shifting and I
didn't just lose my friend, but
I lost friendships, I lost trust
, I lost a sense of stability
and I felt like no one really
told me what to do with my grief
.
I got a lot of like you know,
it's going to be okay, life
moves on, blah, blah, blah blah.
So I kind of just like ended up
sinking into the grief.
It was just a lonely experience
, like I went to his funeral
alone.
I sat there by myself.
I saw him in the casket alone
and I felt like the world kind
of like expected me to move on,
but I didn't really know how, or
maybe it was just I was putting
that pressure on myself, I
don't know.
But I didn't know necessarily
what moving on looked like and
for a long time I believed that
if I did move on then it meant
that I was forgetting him or it
would be some sort of like
betrayal.
It just felt wrong to even like
entertain the idea of moving on
from this loss.
Now fast forward to this week.
I just heard of another friend
from high school.
We were on the same dance team
in school just passed away, and
this really caught me off guard
because I had just literally
seen her a couple months ago in
Chipotle and now suddenly she
ain't here no more.
And, yeah, it just brought me
back to, like, all of these
feelings again the reflections,
the pain, the realization of how
short life really and truly is.
And in my experience with grief
, this is just how it moves, you
know.
It comes in waves, it's
unexpected, sometimes it's a
memory, other times it's the
sudden loss of someone else that
, like, brings up all of these
emotions and it reminds us that
life truly is fragile and that
breath is really sacred and that
none of us are guaranteed
tomorrow.
We don't know when the Lord is
going to decide to take us home.
And so, yeah, it's just been a
really reflective week for me,
specifically reflecting on, like
, the loneliness of grief and
just feeling like the Lord
wanting me to speak to that.
Because I remember, like when I
was grieving in silence, what I
wish somebody would have said to
me was like, hey, I see you and
I'm here, you know, because,
going back to that moment, I
feel like now I can communicate
what I needed back then better
than I could have communicated
it when I was in it.
And, as an adult like I
realized that I just wanted to
be seen in it.
I just wanted my pain to matter
and I just wanted the space to
be able to just be.
But sometimes it can always be
that way your world stops and
life just keeps moving and it's
like we're just expected to kind
of like move with it.
And I think that there is
something powerful about
bringing that to God, because
his expectations are different
than the world's, and I had to
learn that in my journey as well
.
Like myself, I think that a lot
of us kind of walk on eggshells
in our grief because we don't
feel safe enough to express it.
It could be because of the
people around us, it could be
because we're afraid of being
judged or we're afraid of being
misunderstood, and sometimes,
like we may not even know how to
express it, so we just bottle
it up and then we wonder why we
end up feeling numb.
And so what I wanna say to the
person that may be grieving is
that God is not afraid of your
grief.
A lot of the times we can put
that pressure on ourselves to
skip past it, but God is not
asking us to do that.
He's not asking you to pretend,
he's not asking you to fake
joy's not asking you to fake joy
.
God just wants you to bring it
to him, and he wants you to
bring it to him messy, raw,
unfinished, because he can
handle it.
A lot of the times we go in
these cycles and we miss God in
the process.
We try to heal on our own, we
try to process the grief on our
own, but God never told us to do
that.
The Bible says come to me, all
of you who are weary and heavy
burdened, and I will give you
rest.
Rest is truly found in God, and
we have to understand that God
is greater.
He's big enough to handle the
burdens that we carry, and he
wants to do that for us.
I think I talked about this, a
talking to God, one night, and I
heard him say yes, they died,
but you're still here.
And I just want to like bring
that back up too, because this
gave me permission to live again
, and it gave me the permission
to live again not in a way that
forgets the people that I've
lost, but in a way that truly
does honor them, and I had to
realize that carrying them with
me might not mean you know that
I think about the person every
single day.
But what it does mean is that I
live my life while I still have
breath Right, like I choose to
show up, not just for me but for
them, because it's easy to get
in our heads about it, like I
don't want to move on from this
and not love them anymore or
just forget about the impact
that they had on my life.
But I want to encourage you in
saying that moving on doesn't
mean that you don't love them
anymore.
It just means that you're
choosing to keep going.
It doesn't mean that you're
erasing the past.
It just means that you're
choosing to live life one breath
at a time, one step at a time,
one scripture at a time, one
prayer at a time.
I talk about a lot how therapy
helped me, because it allowed me
to revisit what I thought I had
to bury, and journaling was
really a refuge for me in this,
because the paper don't judge us
right.
It just holds space for our
feelings and our emotions and
it's where we can say all the
things that we may not have the
courage to say out loud.
And God meets us there too, and
sometimes it's the safest place
to be in our relationship with
God, because there's no filter,
just let it out on paper.
Grief is going to always try to
convince you in some sort of
way that you're stuck.
It's going to try to convince
you that you're broken, that
your faith is too fragile, that
you know you fragile, that you
can't be all in with God and
still be crying or still asking
questions or still waiting for
peace to show up.
And what I had to learn in my
journey is that grief and faith
are not enemies.
Right, they can live in the
same heart and you can deeply
trust God and still feel the
ache of what you've lost.
You can still question.
You can still question, you can
still cry.
We have an example in the word
of God, and our example is Jesus
.
Like we can see him literally
weeping at the tomb of Lazarus,
even though he knew he was about
to raise him from the dead.
So that right there tells me
that tears don't cancel faith
and that emotions don't
disqualify belief, that grief
doesn't mean that you don't
trust him.
It means that you're human.
Grief is not a problem that
needs to be solved, but it's a
wound that needs to be tended to
.
It's a tender holy space where
God meets us in silence and he
stays, not always with answers,
but always with presence.
I want you to be reminded that
healing doesn't mean pretending
it didn't happen, and having joy
doesn't mean that you're over
it.
We can carry the ones that
we've lost with us, not just in
memory, but in the way that we
live, and that's the redemption
of grief.
Not that the pain disappears,
but that the pain transforms.
It shapes us, it deepens us, it
softens us, it opens our eyes
to the brevity of life, but also
the beauty of still being here,
because you may never be the
same person you were before the
grief touched your life.
But that doesn't mean that
you're broken.
It means that you've been
rebuilt Brick by brick, tear by
tear, grace by grace.
If you're in a place where you
don't have the words to pray, I
want to tell you that God hears
that silence too.
Romans 8.26 says that the
Spirit helps us in our weakness,
when we do not know what we
ought to pray for.
The Spirit himself intercedes
for us through wordless groans.
You don't have to perform for
God in your grief.
You just have to be real.
You got to lay it bare before
him.
If you got to cry in the
bathroom, you go cry in the
bathroom.
If you got to sit in the car in
silence, you go sit in that car
in silence.
If you got to write pages in
your journal pages that only God
can see then you do that
because he is not intimidated by
your pain.
He is not rushing your process,
he's not comparing your grief
timeline to anyone else's, and
what you're feeling is not a
weakness.
It's evidence that your heart
has loved deeply.
Grief is literally the price
that we pay for our depth of
love, and there's something that
is so sacred and so sweet about
that.
And so, if no one has told you
lately, I want to tell you that
I see you, I'm here for you and,
more importantly, god sees you.
You are not alone in this loss.
Keep breathing, keep journaling,
keep whispering the name of
Jesus, when that's all that you
can do, because he's with you.
He is right in the center of the
ache and one day maybe not
today, maybe not soon, but one
day the tears won't sting as
sharply and the memories will
start to bring more smiles than
pain, and you'll realize that
you didn't forget them, but you
carried them, you honored them
by choosing to live your life,
not perfectly, but fully, breath
by breath, day by day.
With grace.
You are still here, so live,
not for guilt, not for pressure,
but because your story is still
being written and because
there's purpose even in this
chapter of your story.
I'm praying for the person
that's listening, I'm praying
for your healing, I'm praying
that peace finds you in the
quiet, and I'm believing that,
even in your pain, purpose is
still possible.
And so, if this spoke to your
heart, I just want to thank you
for sitting with me in this
space.
I want to remind you again that
you're not alone and that your
grief matters to God.
So until next time, make sure
you take care of your heart.
Bye, guys.