Braden’s birthday felt more difficult this year. This mama’s heart ached for the little boy whose laughter and high pitched voice once echoed the walls of our hearts.

I dusted off our external storage drives and open up old videos. I wanted to reach out and hug that crazy video taping mama as I was able to relive so many memories that had been archived. Here is one of him on his second birthday.

It’s been awhile, and I have one thing to say about that, “It’s okay.” Grace is a gift, and I am learning to extend it to myself as well.

A week before Braden’s birthday, I had the honor of speaking at a women’s grief support group – it was the first time I had ever done this. I’ve given my testimony, with Braden at the center, many times, but I had never spoken to a group whose hearts I could identify with – brave and wounded.

As I was preparing my notes, God placed an image on my heart – a disheveled, tightly wound ball of string.

I’ve often related grief to a tangled web of emotions, wound tight, making it difficult to even breathe at times. In that moment, I relived my own journey of unwinding that tightly knit ball, unraveling not only my emotions but myself in the process. It was a process of “unbecoming” something I once was to be remade into something new.

I imagined God taking the end of that string, gently leading me through the process of unraveling, and assisting in the recreation.

Maybe it’s not death that has caused your grief. Maybe it’s the loss of a marriage, job, relationship, or dream. I’ve always believed that grief is grief. In the midst of the unravel, I pray you see God making something new in the process.

“For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.” – Isaiah 43:19