I used to feel like I had to pick a side… either I’m gonna grieve and be sad or be grateful and happy. I felt wrong for feeling both together… It was like I had this loyalty to the lie that both emotions were at odds with each other and couldn’t co-exist. Period. I felt like they were complete opposites like night and day. Black and white. Good and bad.

I bought into the lie that there was a brick wall in between grief and gratitude and the worst part of the lie is that I felt like God made it that way… for so long this kept me coming to God masking one emotion (usually grief) with gratitude only..I suppressed so much for the sake of giving God what I though most satisfied Him… joy right?.. but then He told me that He desired TRUTH in my inwards parts (Psalm 51:6) and that began to heal some holes in my heart that kept me from coming to God with the deeper pains that I had pretended weren’t present.

It wasn’t until last year that God brought this revelation through His word and His people as I began to experience both realities.

It was strange. I didn’t have to pick one and neglect the reality of the other. I could, “in faith” feel both without rejecting the truth that God was still good.

Grief is hard, tricky, confusing , painful, sometimes not perceivable and often experienced silently and gratitude is often the same at times. To be honest, these two are more alike than I thought and yet they’re still soooo very different.

I’m acknowledging every emotion in this season unapologetically and I’m taking my grief to a really good God who understands first hand both grief and gratitude through His only son Jesus being crucified, but then resurrected as the propitiation for the sin of the world. God gets it y’all! He’s so faithful.

This truth makes me so grateful. Thank You ABBA for this sweet revelation and for giving me the permission to process and not just in part. You want me while and You make me whole!

Be loved beloved. HE can handle ALL of you! Bring it ALL before Him and let him hold you as you heal.

-Amy