Devotionals for the Heart: God is still with you in the heavy seasons of life

God is There in the Heavy Seasons
A devotional by Heidy De La Cruz

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

–Psalms 147:3 (NIV)

The time in between August 2020 and March 2021 was a heavy grieving season for me. My grandfather died in August 2020, I suffered a miscarriage in November 2020, and my mother-in-law died in March 2021. Fortunately, if you can say that, this wasn’t my first season of grief. I learned the hardship of grief early in life. When I was only 23, my biological mother passed away suddenly.

You don’t think about the passing of your mother. Although it’s possible, you tend to think of her as immortal—someone who will always be there for you. That wasn’t the case for me. Everyone around me still had their mothers, so no one could understand my pain. They didn’t know the void in my chest that never leaves, the constant heaviness that hurt even to breathe. They didn’t understand that a part of me died and I would never be the same.

Since I had already endured the pain of losing a loved one, I thought I knew how this season of grief would be. However, I thought wrong. Each season is different because your relationship with each person is different. Losing a baby is another type of grief, but I’ll leave that story for another day. One difference in this season from the first was my relationship with God was stronger. I want to share three things that helped me in my most recent season of grief.

Point #1: Talking about my memories with my grandfather

My grandfather lived with us since I was 16 years old. We lived in a humble two-bedroom house. I slept in the living room while he slept in my room. My grandfather was involved in many milestones of my life. For example, I took my driver’s test with his car. He helped me purchase my first car. He was present for my high school graduation. When I was younger, I was told that he would go to a children’s boutique in the Dominican Republic to purchase a dress for me as a birthday gift. He did that for the first five years of my life. My mom would then get professional pictures taken of me in the dresses. To this day, I still have the pictures. Sharing all these stories and memories with whoever would listen was helpful for me.

Point #2: Going on a trip to the beach

My husband’s birthday is August 13. Hoping to celebrate, I planned a trip for us to Ana Maria Island. My grandfather passed on August 10—just three days before the trip. I was so conflicted if we should continue with our plans. I wanted to celebrate my husband’s birthday, but I didn’t want to seem insensitive to the situation. Since we couldn’t receive a full refund, we went for three instead of going for four days. I am so glad we went. It’s hard to continue your day-to-day routine when your heart is so heavy, and this trip helped us get out of routine. It gave me time away from everyone to process my feelings and distract my mind for a few days. Also, I feel the closest to God at the beach, which was therapeutic for me.

Point #3: Staying rooted in God’s Word (The Holy Bible)

As I mentioned above, you can’t do business as usual when your heart is heavy. So, your schedule and routine are all messed up. However, in this season of grief, I was intentional about continuing to read the Bible. I continued my daily Bible study plan and enjoyed reading the Bible at the beach. Listening to worship music while going through the miscarriage was comforting. During my mother-in-law’s passing, I signed up for an online Bible Study. Although I couldn’t log on to the calls, I continued to do the study. This helped me stay mentally and emotionally stable.

These three things listed above helped me during my heavy season of grief.

I know that everyone processes grief differently, and grief doesn’t look the same for everyone, but I hope my experience can help one person. If you haven’t experienced grief, I hope you save this message and use it as a resource to help you during that difficult time.

I want to leave you with a Bible verse that came up multiple times during this season and reminded me that God was with me. Psalms 147:3 (NIV) says, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

God can heal your broken heart if you let Him. May His love fill the void in your heart.

Let’s Pray: Lord, I pray for anyone who may be going through a season of grief that they feel your presence. I pray they draw closer to you and feel your embrace. Please provide the comfort and strength you provided to me during my heavy grieving season to them. Thank you, Lord, for all of your blessings, in your name, I pray. Amen.

Song of Reflection: “He Will Carry Me” by Mark Schultz. Listen to it here.

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Author Bio:

Heidy De La Cruz is daughter of Christ, a wife, and a mother. 

She writes poetry and encouraging spiritual blog posts.

Heidy shares her faith and life in hopes of encouraging women. She hosts the podcast, "The American Dream in The Eye of Immigrants" where immigrants share their stories about moving to the United States of America.

Heidy holds a master's degree in Healthcare Administration and bachelor's degree in Psychology. She works as a Medical Coding Specialist.

In her free time she enjoys reading, listening to podcasts, watching movies, and spending time with her husband and two kids.

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Connect with Heidy:
Blog: https://heidyreynoso.wordpress.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heidy.delacruz13/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heidyreynoso13
Podcast: https://anchor.fm/intheeyesofimmigrantstheamericandream