Navigating Mental Challenges After LossSample

Protecting Your Peace

“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” (Proverbs 4:23 ESV)

Grief doesn’t just crack your heart; it leaves it tender, open, vulnerable. And in that rawness, you begin to see who truly honours your pain and who only tolerates it.

Proverbs 4:23 is more than good advice; it’s survival. Keep your heart with all vigilance. Not because it’s weak, but because it’s the wellspring of everything else. When your heart is fractured, what you let in and who you let close matters deeply.

Even Jesus understood this. After pouring Himself out in healing, teaching, and grieving, He would often slip away to solitary places. Not to escape people, but to return to the Father. To restore what had been poured out. That, too, is a form of guarding the heart.

Singer Tauren Wells shared about how, in a season of burnout and loss, he stepped away from the spotlight to recalibrate. He described how the applause of others started to drown out the voice of God. Retreating wasn’t weakness; it was obedience. His peace depended on hearing God again.

I felt that too. There came a point when I realised I couldn’t hand everyone access to my grief. I used to think being open meant being available to everyone. But not everyone handles Holy things with care. Some offered clichés instead of comfort. Others projected their wounds onto mine.

A friend once dismissed my grief with a throwaway line, and it hurt more than I expected. It was a wake-up call. I began to notice who filled me with light and who left me feeling smaller. I started choosing peace over performance, quiet over being understood.

Grief taught me to downplay both the noise and the silence. Not to bury emotion, but to honour it. To let peace, not people, be the lens through which I healed.

Reflection Questions:

• Are you guarding your heart, or trying to explain it to everyone?
• What boundaries can you set to protect your peace and preserve your healing?

Prayer:

Father, help me guard the heart You are healing. Give me wisdom to know who is safe and courage to step back when needed. Let my solitude be sacred, not shameful, and fill it with Your peace. Amen.