This season can be so hard for many people. Instead of the presence of more joy, people may feel in greater magnitude the absence of someone they love, happiness and peace.

Sometimes on days like today, I allow myself to sit and wonder. Tracing my thoughts to what feels like a little string attaching to my heart and heaven.

Eternity swept into that hospital hallway, in the midst of my anguish and sorrow. Could this be real? Is this a bad dream?

It’s crazier and messier than it appears. There are five hurting children who need to be loved, trained, nurtured and disciplined.

We have all had those days when everything feels like it’s going wrong. Relationships that were once solid now seem fragile, finances feel extra tight, schedules become overwhelming and it seems like our world is starting to fall in on us.

Sometimes in life we experience brokenness that impacts us so greatly we feel as if we are finished. The life we once dreamed about is gone and now our life is never going to come close to all we desired.

It’s been two years today since my world changed forever and I heard the words “we are so sorry, Patrick died.”

The road between sorrow and joy is well worn in our home. The vehicle of our hearts go back and forth on that well traveled plain full of bumps, valleys, beauty and streams in the desert.

Everyone of us are faced with pain in our lives. It comes in all forms and affects us in different ways. It may be sickness, death, financial difficulties, rebellious kids or any various circumstances.

Written by Howard Brummel

Grief has a way of transforming us. For me at times I felt like the fun-loving, bubbly, happy-go-lucky girl I used to be was just buried deep under grief, she was still there just underneath some pain.

God wrote the great story of your life before you ever took your first breath into this world. He knew you would be born into a family with a loving parents who were crazy about each other and you.

It is easy to declare “God is good” when you are on the mountaintop of life, however, when you are in life’s deepest valley, is it as easy to “taste and see that He is good?”

Grief, it feels like a life-altering sickness that throbs with pain so deep you think you may die. It’s something that will always bear a deep scar, will never be forgotten or ignored.

Last year I wrote about a very special tradition my husband and I established on Valentines day when we were dating.