10 Ways To Move Forward Through Grief

When Dan died suddenly, I didn’t know one other young widow. I had no idea what the grief journey looked like or how to move forward through grief.

I wanted to know what grief would look like, whether my reactions were normal, whether I’d ever smile again, and whether my children and I would be okay. Would we make it through?

Oh, how I needed someone a few steps ahead to reach back and assure me that though loss was excruciating, God would take care of me and while I couldn’t see the way ahead, God would slowly shepherd me through the valley of sorrow.

So I began to write words I’d desperately searched for in my fresh pain.

Sunshine did prevail over the dark despair of my broken heart, God was my pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night as I single-parented my seven children, and deep joy bubbled up again.

I cry when I meet others in those first months of fresh grief. I lament as I listen to their stories and remember the collision of pain and overwhelm, and fear and hope.

I want to reach back and extend a hand and say, this way. I can’t fix it. But I can help you find a way through. Let’s look at ten ways to keep moving forward through grief.

10 ways to move forward through grief

1. Take grace for yourself.

Grief affects every single part of your life. It affects you physically, emotionally, cognitively and spiritually. It takes a toll on sleeping, eating, energy, focus, decisions and interests. Processing the emotions of loss consumes an enormous amount of energy and time.

We need to take grace for ourselves. That may mean stepping back from activities or volunteer work we normally do. It may mean cooking simpler meals or spending the day in jammies. It means letting ourselves off the hook of keeping up a social schedule or keeping house like we did before loss.

2. Extend grace to others.

Some people will say the wrong things. Some won’t say anything at all. Some will overstep as they try to help. Others will stay away, bewildered by how they could possibly help.

Most of the time, our family and friends mean well. They want to help the best way they know how. And honestly, because we all grieve differently, what may be helpful for one person isn’t helpful for another. We need to extend grace. Our friends and family can’t heal our pain. The full weight of our grief is one only God can carry.

3. Feed on God’s Word.

So much of the battle in grief is a battle against despair, fear and lies. Add in the overwhelm and massive change that come with grief, and it’s vital we stay anchored in God’s truth.

In my own grief, I needed a daily reminder of God’s character and his promises. As I took my pain, hard emotions, and tough questions to God in his Word, I found enough hope to meet the hard tasks of that day and show up to parent my children. It wasn’t enough to carry me for the week though. I had to go back the next day and re-anchor in his truth. I can echo David’s words in Psalm 119:92: “If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.”

4. Look for the good.

In the darkness of loss, God’s goodness stands out in relief. Because as bad as life may feel in grief, God’s goodness doesn’t start and stop.

But we’ll miss it if we don’t intentionally cultivate gratitude. Look for God’s goodness and record it. Keep a journal or write in your notes app. Ask God to open your eyes to what he’s doing in you and around you and vow not to miss a thing God is doing amidst the hard. 

5. Know the real enemy.

Our enemy isn’t God. God is for us and proved his immeasurable love once and for all on the cross. Our enemy isn’t the people around us or someone who made poor choices that got you here.

Our enemy is Satan and while we’re at our weakest, he would love to get his big toe between us and your family or between us and God. Satan is the father of lies who comes at us to steal, kill and destroy. We need to call him out on his schemes and wield every spiritual weapon God gives us.

6. Sit with the hard emotions.

We can’t rush grief. And as excruciating as grief is, we can’t ignore it, stuff it, mask or medicate it. Any of these won’t keep us from avoiding the pain but only postponing it. We can either deal with grief now on our terms or deal with it later on its terms. There is NO not dealing with grief.

Instead, we need to make space for grief. We need to lament and process the hard emotions of grief. It may feel like two steps back before it feels like a step forward, but the only way is through the pain.

7. Fight.

No one warned me grief would feel like a battle. We have to fight our fear when it rears up to steal our joy and paralyze us from moving forward. We have to fight the lies that threaten to undermine our faith and tell us we’ll never smile again.

We have to fight the despair that it will always feel like this by clinging to truth when our emotions are screaming different. And we have to fight the temptation to stay stuck wishing it could have been different and embrace fully where God has us.

8. Ride the waves of grief.

Grief isn’t linear. Mourning doesn’t happen in nice, tidy stages we can check off to move forward. You’d think each new day would feel a bit better than the one before, but grief doesn’t work that way.

You’ve probably heard grief described as coming in waves. These aren’t peaceful shore breakers, but hurricane force waves that feel like they’ll pull us under at any moment. Just when you begin to start to feel better, you hit a hard day or unforeseen trigger that pulls us back into a deep trough of grief. While grieving may last longer than you ever expected, doing the hard work to process loss will help grief soften and lessen over time.

9. Focus on real hope.

Scripture tells us that believers will experience grief but that we can grieve with hope. (1 Thessalonians 4:13) Our isn’t a birthday wish or toxic optimism. Our hope in grief isn’t rooted in something but in Someone.

We have hope because God is intimately present with us in our loss. We have hope because God is for us and his goodness are at work in ways we can’t begin to imagine. We have hope because God will faithfully meet every need. Psalm 126 promises that those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.

Life may look different than we wanted, but life can be good again.

10. Let God reshape your broken heart.

In my early grief one day, I told God as long as my heart was broken wide open, he might as well clean it out. If we’ll give God the pieces of our broken heart, he will reshape our heart like his. Loss can help us chisel out idols we’d unknowingly nurtured and focus on what really matters.

These ten steps are proactive ways to move forward through grief. To surrender the life we expected while holding both hands open to God to embrace the abundant life he’s promised. It’s not that we get over deep loss.

But slowly, the painful tears of missing will become tears that God brought us through. We can find our footing again, learning to live with the love and without our loved one.