I am forever altered, you know. I look the same, but I’ll never really be the same. Such is the nature of grief. Disorienting and disruptive, it reshapes you in ways you never expected or agreed to.
Everything that follows a death (I hate that word) is divided into two worlds: Before and After—a line drawn, sharp and indelible. One side leaves you treading water in a sea of memories; the other forces you into a future you never dreamed you’d face alone.
Somehow, inexplicably, life marched on. The sun still rose, the seasons still changed, the days kept coming, as if the universe had no regard at all for the gravity of my grief. The world just kept spinning, ultimately leaving me no choice but to learn to keep in step.
Over time, I learned to carry both the beauty and the breaking, until they became indistinguishable. Peace held hands with sorrow. Grace and time softened the grief, allowing me to see the beauty that abounds among the wreckage that obscures.
God met me in the rubble. He sat with me there. He comforted me in my grief—not by taking it away, but by entering into it, showing me that even in the depths of loss, I was never alone. Not for a moment.
I began this post by stating that I am irrevocably altered. This is true, but it is not a bad thing. Loss plus redemption, in God’s divine equation, equals transformation. Alterations are not just changes, after all; they are also repairs.
In the hands of a seasoned tailor, damaged fabric is not discarded. It is preserved and stitched with care—its seams reinforced, its frayed edges bound together by hands that know the work of mending.
God, the Master Mender, salvages what we deem unusable. He doesn’t erase grief but weaves redemption throughout it, paying special attention to the tender places and circumstances that seem beyond repair.
He strengthens what sorrow weakens, restores hope to the frayed and afraid, and ensures that even the most tattered remnants find fresh purpose in His capable hands.
I am forever altered, yes, but not ruined. Not lost. Not undone. I am stitched together by mercy, hemmed in by grace, and made whole by the One who specializes in crafting beauty from the worn out and the threadbare.
Fellow grievers, offer God the threads of the sorrow and suffering that have characterized your days for as long as you can remember. I promise He will steward them well. He won’t waste them. He will make use of each one—every strand finding its place in a masterpiece conceived long before you were—a redemptive tapestry of grace that may differ from your before, but will be no less lovely in your after.
What is often regarded as something to lament, in the end, becomes something to behold. Such is the nature of our Mender.
In His hands, nothing stays ruined forever.
“From the beginning, I have been working between the seams. Where you have ripped, I have mended. When you have torn, I have sewn you. Stitching death to resurrection, failure to dreams, hurt to healing. I never throw out a fabric because it needs repairing.”
~ 𝐀𝐬𝐡𝐥𝐞𝐲 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐤, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑆ℎ𝑜𝑝 𝑜𝑛 𝐾𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑆𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑡