A Devotional for the Grieving Season
For the woman carrying a loss the world has already moved past. The casseroles stopped coming. The texts slowed down. And the grief did not.
There is no timeline in here. No "stages" you are behind on. Just what God actually says to a broken heart, and a daily place to bring yours.
What God says to the brokenhearted
“The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit.”
Psalms 34:18 (BSB)
Close. Not watching from a distance while you get it together. Close, now, at the exact point of the break.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
Matthew 5:4 (BSB)
Jesus calls the mourners blessed, not weak. Grief is not a detour from the faithful life; it has a blessing attached to it.
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
Psalms 147:3 (BSB)
Healing and binding are slow words. They are done gently, over time, wound by wound. Whatever pace your heart is moving at is allowed.
“Jesus wept.”
John 11:35 (BSB)
The shortest verse in the Bible: Jesus wept. He was minutes from raising Lazarus, and He still stopped and cried with the sisters first. Your tears are in good company.
“You have taken account of my wanderings. Put my tears in Your bottle— are they not in Your book?”
Psalms 56:8 (BSB)
Every tear counted, kept, written in His book. Including the ones in the car, in the shower, in the middle of the grocery aisle.
“‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’ and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.””
Revelation 21:4 (BSB)
This is where the story is going: every tear wiped away by hand. Grief is real, and it is also not forever.
Read day 1 of the grieving season
This is the first of 30 days written for exactly this season, as it appears in the app.
God Is Close Right Now
Friend, we don't know exactly what you lost. We only know it mattered, and that today the ache is real. So we are not going to start this month with advice. We are going to start by sitting down next to you.
Maybe you woke up this morning and, for one second, forgot. Then you remembered, and the weight landed all over again. That moment is one of the hardest things a person can carry. You are carrying it. That alone makes you braver than you feel.
Here is the one thing we want you to hold today. David, who wrote so many of the psalms, went through seasons when his heart felt crushed and his spirit felt flattened. And in the middle of one of those seasons, he wrote down what he had learned about where God is when everything hurts.
“The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit.”
Psalms 34:18 (BSB)
Not far away. Not waiting for you to pull yourself together. Not standing at a distance until you can pray nicely again. Near. Nearest, in fact, when the breaking happens.
You don't have to feel that nearness today for it to be true. Feelings in grief are like weather, and no one blames the sky for raining. If all you can do today is breathe, then breathe. If all you can pray is one word, that counts as prayer. If you can't pray at all, friend, that's okay too. God is not grading you.
There is no assignment today. There is no fixing today. There is only this: you are not alone in the room. The God who made you is sitting with you in this, closer than the air, and he is not in a hurry to move you along.
We'll be here tomorrow. One day is enough for today.
Reflect: Where in your day today could you pause for one slow breath and remember that God is near?
A companion for the days nobody asks anymore
Lily gives you a short devotional every morning written for the grieving season, a place to bring the 3am ache and get answers from scripture quoted word for word, and a prayer list for the days when praying feels impossible. Three minutes. No pressure. No timeline.
A companion for the grieving season
Lily is a daily devotional app for women, coming soon to iPhone. A short devotional for your exact season every morning, Bible answers any hour, and a place to watch God answer your prayers.
One email on launch day. No spam, ever.