Perspective: Grief, Faith, and the Homestead

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past few years, it’s that life on and off the homestead can be full of both abundance and loss. The same ground that brings forth food can also hold seasons of drought. The same animals that bring joy and laughter can also bring heartbreak when sickness or death comes.

This past year, perspective has been hard for me to hold onto. Just as my hands get calloused from farm chores, I feel like my heart has become calloused from grief. The grief of what could have been. The grief of what we lost. The grief of feeling like you are not enough. The grief that comes after you think God has finally answered your prayers only to be met again with the brokenness of this world. Grief has a funny way of altering your perception of reality. It adds a layer of grey over everything. Trying to smother the light. The light that once shone brightly but has been dimmed by brokenness.

One of my favorite sweatshirts is one I purchased several years ago when Jordan Lee Dooley was running a small business called SoulScripts. This sweatshirt has the phrase “Your brokenness is welcome here” transcribed across the chest. It’s not flashy or fancy, but simple and honest. I wore this shirt to small group recently and while asking for prayer for our adoption I just broke down in tears. I glanced at my shirt and trying to make light of my own grief, I said something along the lines of “I’m sorry, I hate crying so much. I welcome your brokenness (pointing to my sweatshirt) but not mine.” But that stuck in my brain on repeat. Why don’t I allow my own brokenness to be welcomed? Why do I want to carry the burden of others but not walk through my own?

A week later, I am sitting in an adoption support group. Tense and trying to hold back my tears while listening to a group of adoptive mamas discuss OT resources for their sensory seeking or avoidant kiddos. I knew this was the topic for the meeting, and I almost didn’t go because, well, I am still childless. But I went anyway. Once the OT discussion concluded, we transitioned into updates. Knowing some of our situation they asked me for an update. The tension in my body released once again with tears while sharing the update of being matched and then it being disrupted. Most people don’t understand that grief. But these women did. They didn’t respond with empty phrases to fill the silence. What they did was validate the pain, the loss, the grief. They allowed silence to heal and soft words of encouragement to fill the space. I realized that it was OKAY for me to feel sad about this. I was allowed to feel my own brokenness. I didn’t have to be strong for them. I could just be broken.

God spoke to my heart through the words of a sweet friend, “Don’t lose the love you have…” I wish I heard the rest of what she said, but God stopped it there. Numbness has been creeping into my heart a lot lately, but God gently held me in that moment. As if he was lifting my weary head, full of fears and doubt, reminding me that He is still with me and He is still working. Reminding me that even this season has purpose. Reminding me it’s okay to grieve openly, just as creation groans for redemption (Romans 8:22). It’s okay to admit I’m in a season where the harvest looks different, where the soil of my heart feels thin.

I am pulled back to these truths: His love remains constant. He is faithful in every season, even when I cannot see the outcome. Just as the rhythms of sowing and reaping remind me that not every day is harvest day, I can trust that this season of brokenness is not the end of the story.

Friend, if you find yourself staring at empty garden beds, grieving a loss, or simply weary from the endless demands of life, you are not alone. God is with you in the barn, in the fields, in the mess of your kitchen table. He is for you. He loves you.

So let’s rest our weary souls in His arms. Let’s trust that even in the gray smog of our broken seasons, He is preparing the soil for new growth. And let’s keep tending the ground in front of us, one chore, one seed, one prayer at a time.

Verses of Encouragement

Brokenness & God’s Nearness

• Psalm 34:18 “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

• Psalm 147:3 “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

  
  

Trials & Grief

• John 16:33 “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

• Romans 8:18 “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Hope in God’s Plans

• Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

• Proverbs 3:5–6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

God’s Strength & Comfort

• Isaiah 40:29–31“He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength... but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

• 2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Submit Prayer Requests Here