Gratitude and grief. Those two emotions don’t seem like they go together. Is it possible to feel gratitude after loss? It is possible and it’s important. Let me show you why and give you 5 things you can do to practice gratitude while you’re healing from losing your child.
Gratitude and Grief – Is it Possible?
There are so many times in my grief journey where I have felt polar opposite emotions. Being in a moment where you’re really happy, but also sad that your child isn’t here. It’s so crazy to feel such conflicting emotions at the same time.
Gratitude and grief are another one of those opposite emotions. They don’t seem like they should go together – being thankful while you’re processing grief and all the emotions that go with it. But this is just another one of those times where we’re feeling two conflicting emotions at the same time.
There’s one important point I want to make here about gratitude in grief:
Feeling gratitude doesn’t cancel out what happened. Feeling gratitude doesn’t mean that you’re forgetting your loss or you’re trying to push it away.
It’s also okay if you don’t feel gratitude in your grief. I believe that’s completely normal!
I think of gratitude as another tool that we can use in our grief journey, in our healing journey.
However, if you’re in the early days, weeks, and months after losing your child, you might not have the mental capacity to practice gratitude yet. I know I didn’t.
In those early days and weeks and months after losing Sam, I just survived. That’s all I could do. I didn’t have the mental capacity to try and find gratitude in my day.
So if that’s you and you are in the early parts of your grief journey, bookmark this page to come back to later in your journey. And you can go read this post where I talk about how to make it through the early days after losing your child.
Now, let’s get into why I feel gratitude can be a tool you use in your grief journey and 5 ways you can experience gratitude after loss.
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Why is gratitude important in grief?
So why is it important to have gratitude in our grief journey?
Gratitude and thankfulness brings us peace.
And that’s what we need, isn’t it? We need peace, but not just any peace. We don’t want the world’s peace. We don’t want peace that is here for a moment and then goes away. We want lasting peace, peace that doesn’t make sense in our grief journey. And that only comes through Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7 says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
There are a few key pieces of this scripture that I want to talk about.
“In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God”
In everything.
The “everything” in that verse includes our grief journey. So why would God ask us to have thanksgiving in our lives, to be thankful and grateful in our lives in everything – even the hard times?
Because he knows what happens when you have thanksgiving. He knows the next part of that verse:
“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
This peace is the peace that surpasses all understanding. I like to say it’s the peace that doesn’t make sense.
I should not be feeling this peace right now. It doesn’t make sense. Why would I have peace? I just lost my child.
THAT’S the peace of God. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s a gift to us because this peace will guard our hearts and our minds.
What are the two things that need peace the most in this grief journey? Our hearts and our minds.
And this is a peace that will last. It’s not the peace of the world that is here one minute and gone the next. It won’t go away. It’s not dependent on our emotions or our circumstances. This is the peace that hangs in there through every up and down, through every wave of grief.
So how do we practice gratitude in the midst of grief?
Think of all the kind things people have done for you since losing your child
When I think back of the time after we lost Sam, all the things that people did for us literally blows me away.
We had people come and clean our house.
And with people coming in and out of the house over the next few weeks, the fact that I didn’t have to think about cleaning the house meant so much to me.
We had people give us furniture.
You see, Sam passed away on our couch in our living room and so when we came back from the hospital, I wanted the couch gone. I didn’t want to see it ever again. So I stayed in my room and some of our friends moved the couch out of our house. I don’t even know what they did with it.
But that meant we didn’t have a couch. A sweet couple from our church heard the story and were going to buy us a new couch. So my pastor and his wife went to the furniture store to pick us out a new couch.
He said that they walked in that store on a mission. They were going to find us the best couch ever. The people at the furniture store, who were actually friends of his, walked up to him and were like, what’s up. They could tell something was going on.
So he told them what happened and that furniture store gifted us a new couch completely free.
Strangers gifted us food
We had people that I didn’t even know that found me through Facebook give us gift certificates to buy pizza for dinner one night so we didn’t have to cook. I didn’t even know these people, however, they’re kindness touched my heart.
And that’s just a few of the many stories of all the kind things that people did for us.
This way of practicing gratitude is so amazing because it’s directly tied to your story. It’s things that people have done for you. So just bringing those things into the forefront of your mind can help bring that gratitude into your heart and into your mind.
Count your blessings daily – and deliberately
You see, gratitude is not going to just come to us. Not even because we’re walking through this grief, but just in general.
I believe gratitude is just something that’s not part of our daily rhythms and routines, so we could go a long time without even really thinking of things that we’re thankful for.
This is even more true in our grief journey. So you have to be deliberate about thinking of things that happened to you that day that you’re thankful for.
What would practicing daily gratitude look like?
Make it a part of your bedtime routine
Falling asleep after losing your child is hard, especially in the early part of your grief journey. If this is you, I have a post that goes through things that helped me fall asleep after losing Sam.
Before you go to bed every night make it a point to think of just one thing that you’re grateful for that day.
It could be something as simple as I survived. I made it through the day. Or I cooked dinner for my family. Depending on the level of emotions that you were going through that day that might be the only thing that you can think of.
But you know what? That’s something you can be thankful for.
You might also be having a good day where you can think of multiple things that happened that day. But just making it a point to stop and think of the things that happened that day that were good would be a great way to cultivate gratitude in your heart.
Go outside
I’m a big fan of going outside. In fact, walking outside can play a big role in your healing journey.
I believe when we go outside in God’s creation, the thing that he created with his own words, it brings us so much closer to God and to our child. I think the reason for this is that’s where your child is, they’re with God right now.
When I go outside, I close my eyes and take a deep breath in and I can feel Jesus. I feel so close to Sam when I listen to the birds chirping and the wind blowing. It just brings me such peace.
So how is going outside a way to experience gratitude?
While you’re outside, experiencing the peace that God’s creation brings us, simply thank God for his creation.
“Thank you. Thank you God for your creation. Thank you for the wind that blows and the birds that chirp. Thank you that when I come out it makes me feel so close to you and to my child. Thank you for the peace that your creation brings my heart.”
Join a supportive community
It can be hard to put yourself out there when you’re dealing with all the emotions that come with losing a child. This is something I’ve struggled with in my own grief journey as well.
Losing Sam changed me and this is one of the ways I changed. I find it much more comfortable and easy just to stay at home.
However, I also know it’s so important to not do life alone, especially in our grief journey. Going out and just being a part of a community can really help you get through this time.
How can this look in your life?
+You can join a grief group at a local church or in your community.
+Or maybe a small group in your church that’s not necessarily grief related, but somewhere you can connect with other Christians who can help pray for you and be there for you.
+Join an online grief community.
+Join a fitness group at your local gym. Maybe exercising and working out really helps you work through those emotions while you exercise. Then joining a fitness group at your gym would be a great way to find community for you.
Remind yourself of what God says about hard times
Look in the scriptures and really dive in and dissect what he says about going through hard times. God’s word is truth and has the power we need to make it through.
Here are a few scriptures that talk about hard times.
John 16:33
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
1 Peter 5:10
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
Exodus 14:14
The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.
Deuteronomy 31:8
The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.
Speak the truth of these verses every time you have a hard day. God’s word does not return void. I know these (and others) can give you the strength you need to make it through.
If you’re looking for a specific verse that you can memorize to use when those waves of grief hit, I actually have a free printable for you. I call it your lifesaver verse.
Like the lifeguards when they throw the lifesaver buoy out to someone who is drowning, this Bible verse will be something you can cling to when those waves of grief hit. It will literally keep you from drowning in your grief.
Read through these verses and see which one sticks out to you. Then when a wave of grief hits, repeat this verse over and over and over again.
Download this free printable here.
Remember friend, this grief that we’re walking is a journey. We will never have arrived and completely be “over it”.
Losing a child is a different time type of grief. It’s a grief that is so deep and never fully goes away. The only way it would completely go away is if we have our child back and that won’t happen until we get to heaven.
But I do believe we can find joy and happiness and gratitude in this journey because we know the source of our joy, our happiness and our thankfulness.
It’s not in us, it’s in him. And he is never changing, he is constant. So the source of our joy, happiness, and thankfulness is constant.
We may not feel it all the time, but it’s always there for us. HE’S always there for us. It’s okay to not feel gratitude and joy and happiness. It’s okay because I know that you lean on Jesus.
I know that you’ll be okay because he will see you through. He will heal your heart. He will give you peace that doesn’t make sense exactly when you need it. He will lift that burden that’s so heavy off of you every time you ask.
I pray that throughout your grief journey you will be able to find little things that you are thankful for, even in the middle of your pain and your grief.
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