When you lose a child, something inside you dies too leaving you caught between two worlds.  The world moves forward, but you feel like you’ve been left behind, standing at the grave of what once was. You wake up, you breathe, you go through the motions, but the truth lingers—part of your heart is already in eternity, and yet your feet remain here.

In those early days, the longing is relentless. You don’t want to leave this earth, but neither do you want to stay. You ache for reunion, not escape. Your child has gone ahead, and with them, they’ve carried a piece of you that will never quite belong to this world again. Grief places you in the tension of the now and not yet—caught between the weight of sorrow and the hope of glory.

Time, in its slow mercy, does soften the sharpest edges. And thank God, joy does return. Not as it was before—no, grief does not give back what it has taken. But joy intertwines with sorrow, teaching you how to carry both. I still have my husband, my children, my reasons to stay. There are celebrations yet to come, love yet to give, life yet to be lived. And though I could never leave them behind, there is a part of me that is already waiting on the other side.

But for now, God still has work for me here, and I am grateful. Sorrow has sharpened my vision, grief has washed my eyes, and now I see the world more clearly than before. Sunrises and sunsets are brushstrokes of mercy, new beginnings wrapped in gold. The laughter of my children, the warmth of a hand held in love, the sacred hush of a world blanketed in fresh snow—all of it tinged with glory, echoes of something greater still to come.

Because one day, the beauty will no longer be tinged with sorrow. The glimpses will no longer fade. The colors will no longer be muted. What we now see in part, we will see in full. The now will give way to the not yet, and what was once only a peek of eternity will become the fullness of joy.

And I thank God for it. I thank Him for the glimpses of growth, the small resurrections that push through the hardened ground of grief. I thank Him for the hope of eternal spring—when sorrow will be swallowed up in joy, when what was lost will be restored, when every buried seed will rise in bloom.

But even now, He is here. Even now, He sustains. Even now, He gives glimpses of the life to come.

Come quickly, Lord. But until then, may I be faithful in the waiting.