“Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.”
— Psalm 126:5-6
“Grief is not a disorder, a disease, or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical, and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.”
— Earl Grollman
A SEASON OF SORROW
This week marks one of the most painful anniversaries in my young family’s life.
Exactly one year ago, on Friday, everything changed for us. In a matter of seconds, we lost my father-in-law. He was on his way to visit our family eager to see his grandchildren and share in our lives, but tragically, he never made it.
It feels remiss, almost distant, to say my father-in-law. This wasn’t a man I saw sparingly at Thanksgiving and Christmas as I pursued a relationship with his daughter. It’s a man who has walked with me through a multitude of seasons. One who treated me like the son he never had. One who had been a staple in my life since my teenage years.
The loss left us feeling hollow. Grief touched every part of our lives, from the moments of quiet reflection to the sudden waves of sadness that would wash over you without warning. There is no guidebook for how to carry this type of burden.
The past year has been a constant journey through this grief. The waves are unpredictable, sometimes gentle, sometimes crashing down without mercy. The pain is raw, and I find myself, even now carrying a heaviness I didn’t think I’d still be carrying.
Grief changes you.
It leaves an imprint on your heart. It forces you to confront what you thought you knew about life, love, and loss. And though the pain hasn’t gone away, I’m learning that it’s in the midst of the grief that God tends the soil.
THE STRUGGLE OF SOWING IN TEARS
Grief is a strange companion.
It doesn’t come with a timeline.
It’s not something that can be easily fixed or neatly wrapped up in a moment. It doesn’t always make sense. Sometimes it’s heavy, and other times, it’s just a lingering ache. But it's always present.
In the midst of it, I often find myself wondering—Is this how it’s always going to be?
When we lose someone we love, the pain feels like it will last forever. And maybe, in some ways, it does. But I don’t think it’s in the way we fear.
What I’ve come to realize is that our grief has a purpose. It is not pointless. It is not a sign that God has abandoned us. It’s the price tag assigned to deep affection. It’s a sign that we were touched by something real, something beautiful. And when that is taken away, the loss is felt on a level that can only be understood in the deepest part of our soul.
For a long time, I found myself wrestling with how to move forward.
How do I navigate the rest of life when a part of my heart feels fractured?
How do I keep going, when it feels as if nothing will ever be the same?
How do I lead my wife as she grieves the loss of her father?
How do I talk about death and loss with my three-year-old son?
This is where I find myself still. Wrestling with the grief. Still feeling the weight. Still longing for what once was. But I'm learning that grief is not something to be avoided. It is something to be embraced, because in that embrace, something sacred occurs.
JESUS AND THE SORROW OF THE CROSS
Jesus, in His humanity, knew grief intimately.
He wept at the tomb of Lazarus. He wept for the city of Jerusalem. He cried out to the Father in the garden, asking, “If it’s possible, let this cup pass from me”.
Jesus did not shy away from grief.
He didn’t pretend it didn’t hurt. He didn’t rush through it to get to the resurrection.
He sat in the pain.
He felt it's weight.
And that’s where I find comfort. Jesus knew exactly what it was to hurt deeply. He knew what it was to feel abandoned and overwhelmed.
Yet, He didn’t run from the pain. He sat in it, He surrendered to it, and he resolved that the only way forward was through it.
THE POWER OF SOWING TEARS
Psalm 126 wasn’t a passage that had ever stood out to me until a few months after the accident. I’d read it before, but my life had not yet needed the wisdom it held.
It’s not just a verse about joy—it’s a passage that honors grief, that gives us permission to feel our sorrow deeply, without rushing through it or trying to fix it too quickly.
Before the joy it speaks of, there was loss.
Before the restoration, there was suffering.
The sorrow wasn’t just a momentary event; it was an ongoing weight, a hardship that the people had to sit in.
Notice the phrasing in verse 5: sow with tears.
It isn't “those who cry for a moment” or “those who mourn for a time and then move on.” It says “sow with tears.”
The tears aren’t incidental; they’re part of the process. The psalm gives us the freedom to weep deeply, the permission to create a space to infuse the soil with our tears like seeds in a farmers field.
If we rush past the tears, we rob ourselves of the harvest.
God doesn’t waste our grief.
He is in the soil of our sorrow, transforming it into something that will one day bear fruit.
Even if you can’t feel or see it yet.
The permission to sit in sorrow is critical.
Many of us, myself included, feel a deep pressure to "snap out of it." But here we see that grief itself is sacred soil, that in the waiting, in the weeping, God is planting seeds that will bloom in due time.
We don’t have to rush to joy, because joy comes through the process of planting our pain, one tear at a time, into the ground of God's faithful love.
HOPE AMIDST THE PAIN
Hope is the bridge between joy and our current sorrow .
Hope isn't naive optimism. Hope is a confident expectation that God is still working. Hope is the belief that what is sown in tears will one day be reaped in joy.
But here’s the thing about biblical hope. It’s not about the pain going away. It’s about knowing that God is still in control, even in the unbearable.
Hope doesn’t ignore the sorrow, it meets it head-on.
Hope grows in the soil of grief, and in time, it becomes something beautiful.
You may not see it now, and that's okay, but joy will come.
A FINAL CHARGE
If I’m honest, I’m not there yet.
I’m still sowing tears.
There are still moments when the weight of the loss feels too much to bear. When I don’t have the words to console the wound present on my wife’s heart. When I don’t have an answer for my son asking about life, death, and what lies beyond.
And candidly, there are still days when I long for life before the pain. But in those moments I strive to hold onto this hope. God is faithful. And even in the hardest seasons, He is working. He is redeeming. He is planting joy in the soil of my sorrow.
And friend, He is doing the same for you.
So wherever you find yourself today—in the depths of grief, the loss of a child, waiting for healing, directionless in a broken marriage—trust in God’s promises.
Trust that He sees you, He knows you, and He will bring joy from the sowing of your tears.
Hold on to hope. Surrender your grief. Sit in the sorrow.
Trust that in God’s time, He will bring a harvest of joy.
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