{A blog series} All Things New: Learning to Flourish After Loss

The other day, one of my favorite songs started to play on my Spotify playlist just as I stepped into the shower. The hot water warmed me and freed the dirt particles from my skin after a muddy, trail run in the rain. The familiar words and music to “Beautiful Things” by Gungor washed over me:

All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change, at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found?
Could a garden come out from this ground, at all?

These lyrics speak the questions I’ve grappled with in my heart these last three and a half years since my husband graduated to Heaven. There has been deep grief to navigate. I have experienced secondary losses, including work, friends, family and dreams. As a mama of three, I had to walk my own grief journey, but I also had to be attentive to my daughters and creating a safe space for them to grieve.

I often found myself wondering if I would ever find my way out of the pain and suffering. Everything looked dead, dry and malnourished. I felt like a shriveled, thirsty plant, grieving my past and uncertain about my future.

I had experienced life in a flourishing garden, but suddenly I felt uprooted and alone. Once confident and courageous, I was suddenly unsure of myself, my decisions, my parenting – everything. If you have ever left a home, a church, or a job, lost a loved one, suffered a health condition or watched a dream die, perhaps you can relate.

I was thirsty for God to do a new thing in me. I needed Him to root me deeply in His truth and cultivate my heart for a new future. One of my theme Bible passages for this season has been Isaiah 43:18-19. These words have provided water for my parched soul even on the dark days:

“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

Three words jump out at me from this passage. The first is “springs.” The word springs reminds me of the season of Spring, which is often marked by new growth and blooms. Springs is also an action verb. I visualize something moving forward with energy and direction. God is speaking to you and me in this passage about a new thing He is growing for our future. His work may be underground right now, but He is working all the same.

The second word from this passage that I find myself lingering on is “perceive.” According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, perceive means to gain awareness or understanding through the senses. The question, “Do you not perceive it?” urges readers to look for understanding of what God might be doing in our lives today. God wants us to seek Him. He wants us to have our eyes wide open to His glory – not just when life feels easy and blessed, but also through the challenges.

The word “way” also jumps off the page at me. The imagery here is that God provides a way in the wilderness, where there normally isn’t a path. He provides rivers in the desert or living water in the brittle places of our lives. God’s ways are the unexpected ways. We see Him on the crimson petals of a winter rose. We feel Him in the cool rain that comes after the devastating fire. We experience Him in the new love story unfolding after a heart has been broken.

God continued to whisper these words, “I am doing a new thing,” over me the last few years. He has proved faithful again and again to provide a way.

Throughout January, I will be sharing a series of new blogs with you on the theme “All Things New: Learning to Flourish After Loss.” I want to unfold some of the stories of how God has made things new in my life since my husband’s death. It’s important to me to perceive how God is making a way for my family and to respond by sharing the stories of God’s faithfulness with others.

I also invited some of my writer friends to share their stories this month. The series will include guest posts from Danielle Comer, Danell teNyenhuis, Tara Dickson and Mary K. Hill. All four of them have endured loss, but have also experienced God making their lives new in surprising ways.

Whether you are a widow, a person who has endured great loss, or a reader who loves to trace God’s stories of redemption, you are invited on this journey. This month I hope you will be inspired and challenged by these stories. I pray you will also begin to see God at work in new ways in your own life.

I can’t help myself. I keep singing the chorus of that “Beautiful Things” song in the shower: “You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of dust. You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of us.” Let’s perceive His work together.

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*This post is part of a January series called “All Things New.” Check out the other stories in the series and my new Bible study, Flourishing Together:

“All Things New: Learning to Flourish After Loss” – an introduction to the series by Dorina Lazo Gilmore, including why she chose “All Things New”

“All Things New: My New Normal” – a guest post by Danell teNyenhuis about finding a new life with her daughters after her husband’s tragic death

“All Things New: Life Beyond the Hospital Doors” – a guest post by Danielle Comer about life for a young widow after her husband died of cancer

“All Things New: Learning To Breathe Again” – guest post by Tara Dickson about emptying herself of expectations and breathing in God’s truth and hope after her husband’s death

Flourishing Together is a new 6-week Bible study just released on Amazon. If you are interested in delving deeper into this topic of how God grows beautiful things out of the ashes and dirt of our life, please check out the study:

**black and white version

*full-color version