Sometimes the fog of our grief gets thick and heavy, and we just need a friend to help cut through it. In the pain of grief, Melissa Zaldivar is a friend who understands what it’s like to endure loss and what it means to lean on Jesus, even when you can’t see Him in the middle of the fog. It is a joy to welcome Melissa to the farm’s table today…

Guest Post by Melissa Zaldivar

When I moved to New England, I thought things were just getting started.

Little did I know that those years would cost me everything.

In 2019, my life seemed to be cruelly unravelling. I went from feeling like I knew who I was, where I belonged, and what I “brought to the table” – to falling asleep on the couch every night because going to bed was too much effort.

I had started to slip.

For months I felt like I was slowly sliding down the side of a hill right into the Valley of the Shadow. It wasn’t one or two losses that started the landslide — it was a season of rejections and failures.

All of this felt tolerable at first. I kept telling myself things would get better. But you can only do that for so long.

Of course, we all want to avoid grief stories at all costs.

I’d rather talk about happiness and success than what was said in a graveside service or how it felt when 21 shots were fired as my grandmother held the folded flag in her lap.

But as much as we’d like to skirt around it, death and grief are everywhere because, as it turns out, every loss is a death in some capacity.

Maybe you cannot avoid thinking about the loss of a friend.

Maybe for you it is a loss of a job or a home or a season or a place. It could be the loss of a relationship or a past version of yourself that you liked more than the one you’ve changed into.

“We have this incredible hope beyond the grave, and yet we somehow are still afraid of the grave.”

But every single thing that makes today painful is linked to dying in some way.

And in Christ? We are people of the resurrection.

We have this incredible hope beyond the grave, and yet we somehow are still afraid of the grave.

Even though we sing and proclaim that death has lost its grip on us, we still keep one eye on the exit door in case death walks into the room.

We talk tough about pain and suffering from our high and holy towers, and yet often remain unwilling to descend and acknowledge the dust of life beneath our feet.

“When we lose what we love, sometimes all we can do is stand in the garden, let the tears fall as they may and wait for Jesus to whisper our name.”

I think of Mary in the garden in John 20:1-18 confused and heartbroken, having watched her beloved Jesus betrayed, arrested, beaten, mocked, and crucified. And now where was He? Where had they taken Him?

When we lose what we love, sometimes all we can do is stand in the garden, let the tears fall as they may and wait for Jesus to whisper our name.

Because if the gospel—which literally means “good news”— can’t come to us right in the place of our grief and questions then it isn’t truly good news.

If the hope we’re holding onto isn’t able to find us where we are, we’re grasping at the wrong thing.

But somehow, the pain and grief can birth the strangest, simplest and maybe most life-changing truth of all:

When we have nothing left to cling to, we are finally postured to receive His love the most.

“When we have nothing left to cling to, we are finally postured to receive His love the most.”

So lean into it, friend. Perhaps you’ll put your weight into it like collapsing your tired frame into a warm bed, or maybe like you’re grasping onto a liferaft, but either way, know that He isn’t looking for perfection–He’s looking for you.

Dare to believe that you are safe in Jesus’ presence and there’s no need to impress.

When we come with no ribbons or bows or whistles or tricks or good jokes, we can get down to the unfiltered truth:

God doesn’t need us to be at our best, He just wants us to be His.

Melissa Zaldivar is the author of What Cannot Be Lost and the host of Cheer Her On, a podcast about cheering others toward the Truth. Walking through intense and traumatic experiences throughout her life, she has learned that God is constantly present, even during the darkest of seasons and hopes to share that hope with her readers with practical wisdom and Biblical truth.

In What Cannot Be Lost, Melissa weaves inspiring passages of Scripture and insights from Little Women into her personal story, encouraging readers with her discovery that it’s when we have nothing left to offer that we can receive God’s love the most. And that’s something that can never be lost.

[ Our humble thanks to The Good Book Company for their partnership in today’s devotion ]