Part 1: When You Feel Like You Don’t Have Time to Grieve
“I don’t have time to grieve.”
Those were the words that kept running through my mind after Jon passed. Overnight, my life changed in ways I never could have imagined. I became a widow, a single mom, and the sole person responsible for holding our world together—all at once. There were children to homeschool, piano lessons to teach, bills to pay, and decisions to make. Life didn’t slow down just because my heart had shattered.
Adding grief into that already overwhelming mix felt impossible.
Grief is uncomfortable.
Grief is heavy.
Grief takes time—whether we make space for it or not.
Grief is heavy.
Grief takes time—whether we make space for it or not.
So I did what I thought I had to do. I stayed busy. I kept moving. I told myself I would deal with the pain later—when things settled down, when the kids were older, when life felt more manageable. Feeling the full weight of his absence felt like it would crush me, and I wasn’t sure I would survive that.
But grief doesn’t disappear just because we push it aside.
You can delay it for a season.
Sometimes even for years.
But grief is patient, and it will wait.
Until it finds a way to surface.
Sometimes even for years.
But grief is patient, and it will wait.
Until it finds a way to surface.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but that’s exactly what was happening to me. On the outside, I looked like I was managing. I was functioning, showing up, doing what needed to be done. But underneath the surface, something was unraveling. I hadn’t given myself permission to grieve, and that unprocessed sorrow was settling deep within me.
When we tell ourselves we don’t have time to grieve, what we’re often really saying is that we don’t feel safe enough to stop. We’re afraid that if we slow down, everything will fall apart. But ignoring grief doesn’t make it smaller—it only postpones it. And when the dam finally breaks, the flood can feel overwhelming.
If you’re in that place right now—holding everything together because you feel like you have no other choice—I want you to know something: you’re not weak for feeling this way. You’re human. And your heart has been through tremendous hurt.
...And God is there too.
Scripture tells us, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18). Not hurried. Not disappointed. Close. God never asks us to rush our healing but He does promise to be there with us in our grief.
Looking back, I can see how much I needed permission to slow down—to acknowledge the loss instead of pushing past it. Healing didn’t begin when everything felt figured out. It began when I allowed myself to be honest with God and myself about how overwhelmed and broken I really felt.You don’t have to process everything at once. You don’t need the right words. Sometimes healing starts with a quiet moment—a deep breath, a whispered prayer, unshed tears, or simply sitting still long enough to admit, This really hurts.
Grief needs space. And even though it feels counterintuitive when life is demanding everything from you, making room for your grief is not selfish—it’s necessary. There is healing in the stillness, even when it’s painful. And there is a God who meets us there, patiently and tenderly, one step at a time.
In the next post, I’ll share how my unprocessed grief began showing up in ways I never expected—and how our bodies often carry what our hearts aren’t ready to release.
If you’re walking through grief and need a quiet place to process, I have created resources specifically for you in my Etsy shop, HOPE & HARMONY PAGES. These three digital printables work on their own and hand in hand with each other:
30 SCRIPTURE CARDS FOR GRIEF. If you know someone these might encourage, I would be honored if you’d share these resources—and my blog—with them.
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