The Gift of Staying: What Grief Taught Me About Jesus, Faith and Healing
Hi Kingdom Family,
This morning I was bawling before the Lord with my heart wide open. There are droplets of tears stained across my Bible in John 19 and 20, marking a moment I don’t think I’ll ever forget. I was reading the story of Jesus’ death when I came across a passage of Scripture that touched me to the core.
“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby…” (John 19:25–26). In other words, they saw Him, but Jesus saw them too. He knew who stayed.
As I read the verse, I imagined what it would have been like to witness that kind of suffering up close. I tried to imagine the cross through Mary’s eyes, knowing that it was her son hanging there. And as I sat with those thoughts, my mind went back to my own mother’s death.
My beautiful mom passed away during Passover in 2017, something that still amazes me now, even though I didn’t understand the significance of Passover at the time.
In those final days, the hospice team rarely came, so it was just my dad, my sister, and me trying to care for her around the clock with very little guidance. All we had was a tiny, light blue hospice booklet with a few instructions inside, and the rest we had to learn in real time.
Even in the uncertainty, we stayed.
We were there when Mom wailed out in agony each day as the cancer and bedsores gnawed away at her body. It was the kind of pain that medicine could not touch. Day after day, we stood around her bed with tears in our eyes, looking at each other in stunned silence. We tried to decide what to do when there was nothing left to do. There is a helplessness in those moments that changes you, because love is present, but control is completely gone. Mom was clear that she wanted to die at home, so we stayed even when it would have been easier to call an ambulance.
Mom would drift in and out of sleep, and the room would grow still for a time, giving us a brief moment to breathe. But when she woke up, there was an awareness in her eyes that was impossible to ignore. She knew she was dying, and she was scared.
That reality stayed with me for a long time because it did not make sense. My mom was full of faith. She loved Jesus deeply and trusted Him completely, so I struggled to reconcile the fear I was seeing with the faith I knew she carried.
It was not until I read about the Garden of Gethsemane that something shifted within me. Jesus, fully God and fully human, was in such anguish that He sweated droplets like blood. He prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). That is when I began to understand that faith and fear can exist in the same place.
My mom’s fear did not cancel out her faith. It revealed her humanity as she stood at the edge of eternity.
Mom’s final hour on this earth arrived the evening of April 11. Her breathing rattled and grew heavier, and we gathered around her, speaking words of encouragement like she always did to us. “You did such a great job, Mom. You fought so hard. It’s okay to let go now. You did well. We are so proud of you. We love you so much.”
She took one final deep breath, and then her chest stopped moving. Her spirit had departed and it was very clear. My sister and I always talk about how we felt her soul leave. It’s hard to describe but it was very real.
Although Mom passed away, we did not leave her side. The funeral home did not arrive for several hours, so we washed and cleaned her body and then just sat with her. It was both deeply painful and profoundly sacred at the same time. I realize now that it’s a gift that many people do not get.
Eventually, two women from the funeral home arrived to take her away. The last image I have of my precious, beloved mother is seeing her rolled upright down the hallway on a refrigerator dolly. Still to this day, it’s incredibly agonizing to remember it all, but it’s the truth. Memories like that never erase.
When I returned to the passage in John this morning, I began to see the cross differently. The Marys (and John) did not simply observe what was happening. They stayed close enough to witness suffering in its rawest form -- the brutality, the helplessness, and the kind of grief that settles deep within you. And I realized that staying is not passive. It’s a choice. It’s costly. It requires you to remain in moments you cannot fix, to face what you would rather avoid, and to choose love even when it hurts.
Mary Magdalene lived this out in a way that is hard to ignore.
She did not only stay at the cross; she stayed after. She went towards Jesus even in her anguish.
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance” (John 20:1). Realizing something was wrong, she ran to tell the others. Peter and John came, saw the linen, and eventually left.
But Mary remained.
“Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying…” (John 20:11).
As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her why she was crying and she was honest: “they have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they put him.”
Then, she turned and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize it was Him. It’s as if He appeared in a way that her grief-filled eyes could not immediately recognize. It was only after Jesus said her name, she knew it was Him.
Here’s what’s key though: it was in the staying that she became the first person in history to see the Resurrected Christ. This once-scorned woman is the very person Jesus selected to proclaim the greatest news of all time! Jesus then gave her a word of instruction to go and tell the others.
My friend, again, please understand that there is power in staying with Christ.
In the years after my mom’s death, I began to understand what that looks like in my own life. I stayed with Jesus. I stayed with Him when it would have been easier to turn to other things to numb the pain. I stayed when it felt like my entire world was crushed and I eventually lost everything. I stayed with Jesus when it was lonely. I stayed when it was confusing. I stayed when the path in front of me felt long and uncertain.
I clung to Christ with all my heart. I wanted His way, even when it cost me my old life. And time and time again, He met me in grief and extreme sorrow.
Jesus poured back into my life in ways I could not have imagined. The Holy Spirit became my comforter, my counselor, my advocate, and my helper, just as Jesus promised (John 14:16–17). He taught me what it means to be a daughter. He showed me what a Father’s love looks like. Slowly, God began to rebuild my identity from the inside out.
Nine years later, I still miss my mom with everything in me, and that is human, and that is okay. We only get one mom and I happened to get the best. :) She was vibrant, irreplaceable, and extraordinary. She had more friends than any person I have ever met and that is not an exaggeration. She was really that special. Most of all, I miss being her daughter. Mary missed her son. Mary Magdalene missed her teacher and her friend. The disciples missed Jesus deeply. Grief does not disappear just because we have faith.
There were times when people wanted to rush my healing process, but I am so thankful that Jesus took the long route with me. Because of that, I’m now able to minister and help others walking through similar seasons. It’s truly beautiful how faithful God is when we remain faithful to the process. I can promise you that Mary never, ever forget the suffering of her son on that cross. I don’t want you to ever feel ashamed for what you experienced either.
The story of Jesus did not end at Calvary. It is marked by victory. Death was not the final word, resurrection was. And one day, all of us will stand face to face with Him. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10–11). Until then, we must all press on toward the prize until we take our last breath.
Here’s what I have learned over the years….
God, in His kindness, does not leave us alone.
He gives us His Spirit.
He gives us His love.
He gives us the gift of perspective with time.
Jesus told us plainly that in this world we will have trouble, but that we can take heart because He has overcome the world (John 16:33). This is the tension we live in, the reality of suffering and the promise of victory, and somehow, God meets us right in the middle of both.
Every life looks different. Sometimes God brings new relationships and new seasons to help the healing process. Other times, it becomes a long stretch where it’s just you and Him, like the woman with the issue of blood who endured years of isolation before her breakthrough.
Jesus knows what it takes to draw us closer.
He knows how to meet us.
And He is faithful in every season.
So wherever you find yourself today, my encouragement to you is simple. Stay with Jesus. Trust Him with all your heart, even when it hurts.
Sometimes I think about what it would be like to have just one more day with my mom. I know the first thing I would ask her about is Jesus and what Heaven is like. But I would also want her to meet this version of me.
The version that stayed with Christ through pain and sorrow.
The version that chose to forgive and love others who caused me great heartache during the most vulnerable time in my life. The version that learned to stand again even without my mom and best friend here anymore.
The version that is still learning, still growing, still falling short all the time, but being lifted back up again and again by God’s love and tenderness.
Jesus is still teaching me how to stay. And He will teach you too.
Because in the end, it is often in the staying that we come to know Him the most. 🕊️🤍
“What a wonderful God we have—he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the source of every mercy, and the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us in our hardships and trials. And why does he do this? So that when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them this same help and comfort God has given us.” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4, TLB).
