Navigating Mental Challenges After LossSample

When New Struggles Surface

“For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord.” - Jeremiah 30:17 (ESV)

Grief is rarely a one-act play. It doesn’t close neatly after one scene. It stirs up everything: old wounds, buried insecurities, weariness you didn’t even know was waiting. And sometimes, it doesn’t look like sadness at all. It looks like exhaustion. It seems like withdrawal. It looks like forgetting how to laugh. It can even look like drifting quietly from the person you once were.

We see this in Elijah. Right after calling down fire from heaven, one of the boldest, most miraculous moments in Scripture, he crashes. Hard. He flees to the wilderness, sits under a broom tree, and whispers a prayer that aches:

“It is enough now, O Lord, take away my life.” (1 Kings 19:4, ESV)

But notice this, God doesn’t rebuke Elijah. He doesn’t question his faith. He simply meets him there. With sleep. With food. With stillness. With presence. Not to rush him out of his pain, but to hold him in it.

For some, grief leads to deeper shadows, like depression or even thoughts of suicide. And in today’s world, that can feel especially heavy, because people often expect faith to cancel out pain. But it doesn’t. It walks with us through it.

Lauren Daigle, the Grammy-winning Christian singer, has spoken courageously about this. At the height of her success, while pouring joy into the world through music, she was drowning in anxiety and depression. The weight became so heavy that she considered ending her life. But God met her, too, in therapy, in prayer, in people who didn’t look away. Slowly, she began to heal. Not by going back to who she was before, but by discovering who she could be after.

That resonated with me. After my loss, I found myself unravelling in quiet ways, relational tensions I didn’t expect, fatigue-fueled decisions, emotions that didn’t have tidy names. Some days, I didn’t want to die, but I did want to disappear. To not feel so much. To not carry so many invisible things. I whispered, God, how do I keep showing up in a life I no longer recognise?

And His response was never a formula. It was always His presence. Sometimes in Scripture. Sometimes, it's in a friend’s unexpected kindness. Sometimes in sheer silence that somehow still felt full.

So if your grief has grown into something that scares you, if your mental health feels fragile, or your hope is hanging by a thread, please hear this:

You are not too much.
You are not alone.
You are not forgotten.
God sees you in the dark, and He’s not flinching.
He’s staying.

Reflection Questions:

• Have new or unexpected struggles surfaced in your grief journey?

• Where do you need restoration, emotionally, spiritually, relationally?

Prayer:

Jesus, You see the cracks that others miss. The silent battles I fight. Where grief has opened deeper wounds, be my healer. Where I’ve grown tired or distant from myself, draw me back. Thank You for staying close even when I feel far away. Amen.