<\/p>\n
Everyone says to follow your bliss, It may seem counterintuitive\u2014-even risky\u2014to follow the call of our grief, especially when it is inconvenient or embarrassing. We may spend months or years denying how we really feel, trying to fit into a culture that tells us over and over to follow our bliss. Others may encourage us to gloss past the depth of our pain and paint it over with the veneer of false happiness. It\u2019s true that joy, if followed, can lead us where we need to be. But turning away from our grief, that lone candle left burning, also shuts off our access to positive emotions like joy, delight, and wonder.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It will perhaps feel self-indulgent not to answer phone calls or messages for a time, not to answer the door, or call into work\u2014but in these shaky early days, our self-care must come first. We never want to sugarcoat the presence of sorrow in our life or anyone else\u2019s, yet many of us know from experience that even the darkness of grief contains possibility. A strange uplift can come on the other side of giving ourselves over to the waves of sadness when they come.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Grief asks us to plunge both hands deep into the soil of this awful, new experience, in which we may discover traces of a new path. We never would have asked for this and do not willingly turn toward it. Yet maybe we can see that loss has given us a chance to remake our life, to decide how we want to move through the world. It may come only as a flicker at first, but even that hint of possibility can light our way.<\/span><\/p>\n What would it mean right now for you to follow your grief, to give in when it calls for your gentle attention? Can you trust that, even though you may not feel it now, every sorrow holds a hint of possibility? If you choose to write, you might begin with the phrase \u201c\u00adToday I need to\u201d and see what unseen needs arise that might have been living at the edges of your awareness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Excerpted from <\/span>Turning Toward Grief <\/span>by James Crews. Copyright \u00a9 2025 Broadleaf Books.\u00a0 Reproduced by permission.<\/span><\/p>\n RLC welcomes and encourages individuals who engage in critical thinking at the intersection of faith and justice to contribute to our blog. The views and opinions expressed by our blog authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of RLC, its staff, members, or officers.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Follow Your Grief,\u00a0By James Crews\u00a0 Everyone says to follow your bliss,but what if, some days, you needto pull the shades, draw the coversover your head, and turn \u2013 towardgrief instead? What if sadness callslike the one candle left burningin a room, with its blackened wick,its scent of struck matches, and flickerof long-gone breath? Joy is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5071,3560,3547,1347],"class_list":["post-18568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-excerpted","tag-follow","tag-grief","tag-turning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/span>but what if, some days, you need
<\/span>to pull the shades, draw the covers
<\/span>over your head, and turn \u2013 toward
<\/span>grief instead? What if sadness calls
<\/span>like the one candle left burning
<\/span>in a room, with its blackened wick,
<\/span>its scent of struck matches, and flicker
<\/span>of long-gone breath? Joy is the fire
<\/span>we\u2019re taught never to deny, but why
<\/span>not see sorrow as elemental too\u2014
<\/span>plunging both hands deep into that
<\/span>rich, black soil in which anything,
<\/span>anything might grow?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nInvitation for Writing & Reflection:\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n