When the Bottom Falls Out
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.”
Psalm 34:18 (NLT)
There is a kind of pain that leaves you numb.
Loss does that. It knocks the wind out of you, then sits on your chest like a weight you cannot push off. And the worst part is, everything keeps moving like nothing happened. The world does not pause for your grief. The bills still come. The sun still rises. People still laugh, plan, work, and scroll through their lives while you are stuck in the aftershock of something that tore your world in half.
Grief is not neat. It is not clean. It is not quiet. It is a slow burn that turns ordinary days into minefields. You never know what memory will trip the wire. A smell. A song. A place. A name. And suddenly you are not in the present anymore. You are back in the moment everything changed.
Maybe it was a loved one taken too soon. Maybe it was the long goodbye of illness. Maybe it was the loss of a marriage, a child, a friendship, or the version of life you thought you were building. Whatever it was, it took something you cannot get back. It changed your rhythm. It changed your heart.
You may have people in your life who want you to bounce back. They do not mean harm, they just do not understand. They quote verses without context. They give advice they read in a book. They want to fix you, when what you really need is someone to just sit with you and let it hurt.
Let it hurt. That does not make you weak. It makes you human. And it brings you into a place where Jesus meets you most deeply. He does not avoid pain. He enters it. He sits in it. He transforms it.
Jesus wept. That one verse in John 11 is more powerful than most sermons. Jesus, fully God and fully man, stood outside the tomb of a friend and cried. Even knowing He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, He still let Himself feel the weight of death’s sting. He grieved with the sisters. He joined their sorrow. And then He did what only God could do.
That is your Savior.
He is not uncomfortable with your questions. He is not distant when your heart breaks. He is not waiting for you to get over it. He is with you. Right in the thick of it. Not rushing you. Not shaming you. But holding you.
You might feel like the bottom has fallen out. Like nothing makes sense anymore. Like you are walking through a fog with no end in sight. That is what grief does. It disorients you. It changes your pace. It messes with your sense of time and place and stability.
But there is one thing it cannot take. It cannot take the presence of God.
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.” That is not a suggestion. It is not a metaphor. It is a promise.
And it is not the only one. He also said He would never leave you. Never forsake you. Never forget you. Even when you feel like you are drifting, He is right there. Holding the anchor. Waiting for you to look up, even if all you can manage is a tear and a whisper.
This is not about pretending everything is fine. This is about letting God into the wreckage. This is about surrendering the idea that healing means forgetting. It does not. It means learning to breathe again. It means learning to carry the love forward even when the person is gone. It means learning to let go without losing the memory.
You do not have to rush the process. You do not have to explain yourself to everyone. But you do have to choose. You can choose to let your grief isolate you, or you can choose to let it drive you to the One who understands suffering better than anyone who ever walked this earth.
Jesus did not die just to get you into heaven. He died to walk with you through hell on earth too. Through loss. Through heartbreak. Through trauma. Through disappointment so deep it makes your bones ache.
You will not always feel like this. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next month. But the day will come when the sun rises and you realize you made it through the night. The day will come when you laugh and it feels real. When you remember without breaking. When the pain turns into purpose. When the scar does not sting anymore, it just reminds you that healing came.
You may never be the same. But you will not always be broken.
You are still here. You are still breathing. And that means God is not finished.
Scripture to Hold Onto:
“He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.”
Psalm 147:3 (NLT)
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