Finding Peace in Grief

It can be hard to imagine peace after a loss. Johanna Stamps gives practical tips for experiencing peace even when walking through times of grief. 

When I began to walk intentionally in my grief, I started to find peace, but it wasn’t what I expected — at all. 

My desired peace looked like a beautiful, softly lit room where I could just be quiet, maybe feel similar to what we did before the loss that led to my grief. Maybe light music would be playing, and the air would be gently moving — not too cold and not too hot. Peace was a place.   

The only problem was that life’s circumstances were constantly moving. I had lost my marriage, was about to become a single mother, was set backward financially by ten years, returned to the US after ten blissful years abroad in Africa, and was living with my elderly parents, stepping into a caretaker role.   

I could find moments of stillness with God, but lasting peace was completely opposite from what I anticipated. I didn’t write about it for years because I thought it was unique to me. It seemed so far-fetched, so different from what the world is talking about.   

Peace, by the world’s standards, is finding quiet in nature, participating in still meditation, or sipping a quiet cup of coffee with your journal.   

When I was in the throes of grieving, I could find brief respite in those activities, but it was quickly replaced with the horror of my circumstances and an overactive core of worry.   

This is not the peace Christ spoke about. In almost every Gospel mention of peace is the word reconciliation, and this is echoed in this passage from Saint Paul's Letter to the Colossians:   

And through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the blood of his cross [through him], whether those on earth or those in heaven. (Colossians 1:20)

Peace, in Christ, is not a place we dip into and fall out of, only to seek it once again. We may get a sense of peace for our weary souls, but the peace Christ speaks of is for eternity.   

So, I suppose it’s not a surprise that the type of peace I’ve experienced for myself is very different. The peace I’m seeing accessed is life-altering. It is a turning away from what was and towards what Christ has done and continues to do in our lives.  

There seem to be three paradoxes in finding this type of peace in grief.  

Peace in grief is not passive—it’s active   

Even in the early days, as I was experiencing grief, I had this desire to turn my eyes to God and walk, but that seemed so inactive. I veered away from it because I felt the need to do something on my own. I felt the more I actually did, the more I could heal.  

It wasn’t until I partnered with God that peace began to come.   

His goal is very clear:  

So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)   

That seems like a tall order in the midst of our grief, but after a loss and in a time of major transition, it’s almost the perfect storm for God to do major work in our lives. If we let Him, He is going to use everything in our life to carry out His goal.   

I had equated action with the exhaustion of doing so many things at one time to move toward my goal. However, action with God leads us to what makes us come alive.  Active peace is where we find God in our own unique way. This may be bringing beauty into the world or seeing people’s lives healed. Often, it’s something that has been dormant in our lives for many years.  

Peace in grief is not healing our circumstances — the healing is something deeper  

At the beginning of my grief, I just wanted everything in my life to make sense; I wanted my circumstances to be ordered and to see the perfect path forward.   

For those around me struggling with a major loss, this may look like, “I just want my old job back,” or “I want the marriage I used to have.”   

Logic says, if time is reversed, and things go back, everything will be better.   

However, God wants freedom for my life, and freedom is not the management of symptoms and circumstances — it’s a deeper healing.    

For me, it has been healing the cycle of dis-trust that I lived with for many years. If I continued to live in my false sense of freedom, I would never truly learn that lesson.  

Peace in grief is not getting control — it’s in letting go   

Grief is very demanding, and it wants to be in control of everything in your life. I found this to be true when I let it. The control often came with words like:  

• “This is not fair.” 
• “This is never going to be okay.” 
• “My life will never be the same.”  

We can get completely sucked into our circumstances and the injustice of it all if we don’t have our eyes turned toward a healthier path.   

I was stuck in my grief because I could only see one way forward. I wanted one thing, but no matter how hard I worked at it, it didn’t seem to take place. It was only when I released my desires that I began feeling a sense of peace. It was in prayer, talking to God, and living through God that I was able to see my bigger purpose of life.   

When we grieve, we become like scientists. We grab our microscopes and zoom into every little nook and cranny of a petri dish — of our lives. We analyze, criticize, and get such tunnel vision that it’s hard to imagine that this dish is only a very small section of the world around us.   

Up close, what we’re looking at can seem quite ugly. But when we step away from the microscope, we can take a look at the bigger picture and see that the ugly portion we were looking at was the smallest scale of a butterfly wing. Stepping back, we get to see the beauty of the whole butterfly and how it nourishes the world.   

Through God, we can take a step back and see that what looks ugly to us can actually be a beautiful piece of a puzzle.  

God asks us to let go and to look to Him. When we do, we see the million ways we can move forward to find peace.   

What is your idea of peace? How might your idea of peace differ from what God wants for your life? What is at the root of your stuckness?  

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Copyright 2024 Johanna Stamps
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