Here, We Grieve Again.

 This November will mark fourteen years since my dad passed away. There’s nothing particularly significant about year fourteen, just another year that has passed without him here. Yet somehow, this year has felt different. If I’m being honest, it’s been especially hard lately. I really miss him.

I miss him as my dad, but I also miss him as a pastor. I long not only to hear his voice, but to hear his wisdom. As I settle into my own career in ministry, I so desperately wish I could call him. I want to hear his perspective, learn from his experience, and treasure his advice. I long to share with him the joy and weight of following Jesus and serving in full-time ministry.

I'm grateful for the gift of his book and blog posts that I can continue to return to. I love learning from him. His voice, his writing, his perspective, and his creativity are still relevant in my life today, and I'm sure they continue to be in the lives of many others too.

Sometimes I think that if he were still here today, he would realize just how much alike we are, more than either of us ever knew, and how much we'd bond over our shared interests and struggles.

I’ve realized that I miss him differently now in my adulthood than I did as a teenager. Grief has changed as I’ve grown. In some ways, the void feels even larger. I’m learning to let myself sit in that reality again instead of rushing past it simply because there’s no earthly solution.

I miss my dad. I always will.

While there’s no easy fix for a lifelong journey of grief, I’ve found freedom in simply allowing myself to exist in it. Not giving it more power than it deserves, but acknowledging it. Honoring my dad in the midst of it. Acknowledging grief's presence reminds me not to forget, not to forget the Lord’s faithfulness and healing in my life, and not to forget who my dad was or the legacy he left behind.

In an unexpected way, grief keeps him alive in my memories. It reminds me that I am not just a shell of myself, watching life from the outside as it goes on without him. The reality is that he is gone, and life does move forward. But grief also reminds me that there is still something worth remembering, and because of Christ, there is still something worth living for.

So I lay it all at the feet of Jesus.

As much as my heart aches and longs to be reunited with my dad, an even greater longing remains: to belong to and dwell with my Heavenly Father. And until that day, I trust the steadfast love of the One who has faithfully carried me through every year without him.

- MS