It is not fair to be pressured to only share the highs of your life and none of the lows, especially if you are on a grief journey. Thankfully, there is a flowing stream for grief that moves in a direction away from despair. Sometimes it runs swiftly and other times very very slowly. But, it is a stream that invites you to honestly share your lows, your tears, your fears, your weariness, your anxiety, your disappointment.

In particular, reproductive loss is a lifelong journey of grief. You never forget the babies who never got their start in a successful pregnancy. You also never forget the babies lost during or after pregnancy. Transforming hope can actually be found in Jesus Christ so that the ultimate destiny turns you away from despair. And how does this happen?

In His suffering on the way to the cross (Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46; Luke 23:46), Jesus quoted two different Psalms that reveal a healthy direction for the stream of grief. First, He honestly says from Psalm 22:1, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” He honestly expresses the wrenching emotions of suffering and the urgent request for suffering to be removed. This is often the place we find ourselves. We want suffering to be removed.

Yet, moving in the holiest of directions, Jesus says from Psalm 31:5, “Into Your hands I commit my spirit.” He entrusts the Holy Father with his life and realizes that he will not be abandoned in His journey through grief. He clings to the truths of scripture and determines that God will be present throughout his ordeal and will safely bring him through it. Yet, without removing suffering.

Being made in God’s image even so, we all will grieve hard things. God grieves over our sin and suffering. He is compassionate and merciful, while also not being manipulated to make all our pains go away. Suffering remains part of life’s road since the Garden of Eden, and grief is how we meet those sufferings and process them. How we grieve is important. Who we share our grief with is important. Who helps us carry our grief is important. Grieving well is the difference between the stream of our hearts moving toward or away from hopelessness.

Choose to move away from hopelessness. From Psalm 22:1 to Psalm 31:5, the direction of grief is toward God Himself. Crying out honestly should move us toward the trustworthy love and safekeeping of God the Father. He invites us to cry out to Him, to bring our griefs to Him, to lament in prayer. Committing your spirit to Him in faith delivers to you the assurance of Psalm 56:8 that says, “[God] You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?”

Jesus depended completely on His Father, the Spirit of Life, to rescue Him from death. This is what faith looks like. With seemingly terrible odds, we can have confidence in a Holy God to see us in our pain and to hear us as we weep. God is the author of miraculous resurrection. Not just resurrection from death to life (the ultimate direction of hope), but resurrection from pain to joy, tears to comfort, isolation to companionship, old dreams to new dreams, despair to encouragement, doubt to trust, God’s absence to God’s presence.

While God does not erase our pain, He consistently offers His secure compassion, care, and presence while we journey through it. He invites us to cry out, to process our lows, and to feel our feelings honestly in His trustworthy hearing and seeing. He is faithful to move us in the direction of hope, keeping our central focus on Him. It’s not a release from pain, but rather the presence of One Who understands our pain and wants to keep us moving along the stream that flows away from despair. It requires walking by faith, not by sight. It requires keeping an honest dialogue with God going. It requires a heart that pursues the higher dreams of life with God and a heart that releases the lesser dreams into His capable hands for safekeeping.

The best direction for grief is the faithful one that takes us from Psalm 22:1 in the direction of Psalm 31:5.