Grief does not always wait for a funeral. Sometimes it begins in pieces. But life still has to be lived. For us, that means never compromising on date night. Sometimes that looks like putting the kids to bed early and having a quiet dinner at home, just the two of us. Other times it means getting out, like we did here at Zoo Atlanta with a stop at the virtual reality ‘ride.’ Scripture says there is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh.”
Some weeks, both show up at once…
Dementia Taught Us Something About Grief
One of the hardest things about walking through advanced dementia with Mama Z’s dad is realizing that grief does not always wait for a funeral.
Sometimes it begins in pieces.
A conversation changes. A memory disappears.
A role in the family flips. A future you assumed you would have together starts looking different.
The person you love is still here, but they’re not the same person. Still worthy of dignity, patience, affection, prayer, and presence.
And yet something real has changed.
We tend to read “Honor your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12) as a command for children. It is also a command for grown children, and honor looks different when it happens in doctors’ offices, hospital rooms, and memory care hallways.
This summer, while helping Mama Z’s mom (Mimi) walk through doctors, hospital visits, worsening dementia, and memory care, we found ourselves carrying emotions that did not fit neatly into the word caregiving.
All the while, we were helping our children and Mimi walk through their own grief as well.
There was love. Gratitude.
Frustration. Hope.
Sadness. Exhaustion.
Relief when help finally came. Guilt for feeling relieved.
And grief over things that had already changed.
Psalm 56:8 speaks right into that kind of season:
“You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?” — Psalm 56:8
God sees every one of those tears. Nothing about a season like that goes unseen.
Then we realized something bigger: dementia did not invent this kind of grief. It simply made it impossible for us to ignore.
Everyone is grieving something.
Maybe it is a parent who is changing. Maybe a marriage ended.
Maybe your child moved out. Maybe your body no longer does what it once did.
Maybe you lost a pregnancy, a friendship, a job, a home, a ministry, a dream, or the future you were sure God was going to give you.
Not every loss is equal, but loss is loss, and the heart often knows before we have words for it.
Need a quiet moment with God before you dive in? Start with this short prayer…
What Counts as Grief?
As part of our Nervous System Regulation Series, we would be remiss if we didn’t discuss grief, because few things can set you down a spiral and trigger your fight-or-flight response like unmet expectations and deep sorrow… yet no one seems to talk about this.
Grief is the response to significant loss. Death is one of the clearest forms, but it is not the only one.
The American Psychological Association defines grief as the anguish experienced after significant loss, and notes that grief may also take the form of regret for something lost, remorse for something done, or sorrow for a mishap to oneself.
That helps explain why some of the hardest losses are the ones nobody brings a casserole for.
A relationship changes.
A diagnosis changes your future.
A child grows up and the house gets quiet.
A dream you prayed over never happens.
A season ends before you were ready.
Someone is physically present, but the relationship is no longer what it was.
Psychologist Pauline Boss uses the term ambiguous loss for losses that do not have a clean ending.
Dementia is one example, but the idea can also apply to divorce, estrangement, severe illness, and other situations where something important is gone while part of the relationship or situation remains.
Unmet expectations sit at the heart of so much grief, especially ambiguous loss.
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” — Proverbs 13:12
Having hopes for how life will go is not wrong. But when your heart is set on something and it does not happen, the loss is real.
If it cuts deep, it needs to be grieved.
Watch any child who does not get their way. Some erupt.
Some lash out. Some disappear into their room.
In that moment, their whole world has fallen apart.
As adults, we learn to hide those reactions. We are expected to be mature.
But hiding grief is not the same as healing from it. Often it just goes underground.
And it can hurt even more because there was never a moment when anyone agreed that you lost something.
Hannah knew that kind of grief. Year after year, the child she prayed for did not come.
“She was deeply distressed and prayed to the LORD and wept bitterly.” — 1 Samuel 1:10
Eli the priest watched her pray and assumed she was drunk. Sometimes even the people closest to God misread our grief.
God did not.
“I’m grateful to be here, receiving encouragement, recipes, and whole-body transformation. Even after trying times, I trust you and Mama Z. The spiritual aspect completes the system: body, soul, and spirit.”
— Ellen D.
Grief Doesn’t Stop at Your Heart. Your Nervous System Feels It Too
Grief is emotional, but it is also physical. The American Psychological Association describes grief as often including physiological distress, and the body’s stress response involves the autonomic nervous system, including the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches.
That helps explain why grief can show up as a racing heart, tight muscles, restless sleep, stomach trouble, exhaustion, or feeling keyed up even when the room is quiet. Research on acute bereavement has measured higher heart rates and reduced heart-rate variability in the first weeks after loss.
This does not mean grief is a nervous-system disorder, and nervous system regulation is not a way to make grief disappear. You are not supposed to regulate yourself out of missing someone, mourning a dream, or feeling the weight of a changed life.
Remember Elijah. After a crushing season, he lay down under a broom tree and asked God to take his life.
God did not lecture him.
“An angel touched him and said to him, ‘Arise and eat.’” —1 Kings 19:5.
God cared for his body with sleep and food before He spoke to his heart.
Regulation is about helping the body move through stress without staying stuck on high alert.
Sometimes that means noticing activation sooner, slowing your breathing, protecting sleep, eating regularly, getting outside, praying with your whole body instead of only racing through thoughts, receiving support, and giving yourself enough margin to come back down.
Is It Wrong to Grieve Something That Is Not Death?
No. Scripture does not tell us to rank our sorrow before we bring it to God.
“Jesus wept.” — John 11:35
Jesus knew what He was about to do for Lazarus, and He still entered the sorrow in front of Him. Isaiah called Him “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).
Our Savior is no stranger to loss.
Romans 12:15 tells us to weep with those who weep.
“The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” — Psalm 34:18
And Jesus Himself said:
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” — Matthew 5:4
Christian hope does not require pretending a loss did not hurt.
Faith and grief can (and need to) occupy the same heart.
Why Does Grief Feel So Messy?
Because grief does not move in a straight line, and it does not always look like sadness.
You may feel sad one hour and completely normal the next.
You may feel angry about what changed or what was taken from you.
You may feel relieved when a hard season ends, then guilty for the relief.
You may feel jealous when someone else still has what you lost.
You may feel numb and wonder why you are not crying.
You may feel grateful and heartbroken at the same time.
None of that automatically means you are grieving badly. It means you are human.
Naomi came home after burying her husband and both sons and told the women of Bethlehem:
“Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.” — Ruth 1:20
God did not rebuke her for that. Her story ends with a grandson on her lap (Ruth 4:16), in the family line that leads to King David and to Jesus.
Even the psalmist argued with his own soul:
“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God.” — Psalm 42:5
Not every painful emotion is evidence of weakness or some hidden sin. Sometimes it is simply evidence that something mattered.
How Do Christians Grieve Without Losing Hope?
Paul never told the church not to grieve. He told them not to “grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).
Biblical grief is not denial, and Biblical hope is not pretending everything will return to the way it was.
Tell God the truth. “Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us” (Psalm 62:8). The Psalms give us language for sorrow, fear, confusion, anger, and longing.
Name what you lost. Vague pain is hard to carry. David prayed, “How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1). Sometimes clarity begins with one sentence: “I miss...”
Receive what is still here. “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23). Do not let grief over yesterday make you miss today’s mercies.
Let people help. In Gethsemane, Jesus told His friends, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch” (Mark 14:34). If the Son of God asked for company in His grief, you can too. Galatians 6:2 tells us to bear one another’s burdens. Needing support is not failure.
Keep hope anchored in Christ. Our hope is not that every earthly loss will be reversed exactly as we want. It is that God remains faithful in the middle of it, and that death itself will not have the final word.
Grief Touches the Whole Life
Jesus said:
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” — John 10:10
That is one reason grief belongs inside Bible Health. A loss rarely stays in one category.
Spiritual: questions, prayer, trust, disappointment, hope.
Physical: sleep, appetite, energy, stress, movement.
Mental: focus, decision-making, rumination, mental overload.
Emotional: sadness, anger, guilt, fear, relief, longing.
Financial: medical bills, lost income, moves, caregiving, major transitions.
Occupational: work changes, lost roles, reduced capacity, new responsibilities.
Social: marriage, family, friendships, church, isolation, support.
Grief can touch every area of the abundant life, which means healing and support may need to reach every area too.
“Thank you so much for everything you all do, and especially today for the Scriptures. I really needed those today.”
— Mary G.
What Dementia Is Teaching Us About Love
We would never have chosen this classroom. But dementia is teaching us something we want to carry into every loss we will ever face.
Dad may forget. God does not.
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands.” — Isaiah 49:15-16
Read that through the lens of dementia and it lands differently. The deepest fear in memory loss is being forgotten, or forgetting who you are.
But a person’s worth was never stored in their own memory. It is held by God.
Dad is still fully known and fully loved by the One who made him, even on the days he cannot remember us.
The same is true for you, whatever you are grieving.
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” — 2 Corinthians 4:16
We are watching the first half of that verse happen in front of us. We are choosing to believe the second half anyway.
Love does not require us to pretend nothing changed. And grief does not require us to stop loving what remains.
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” — 1 Corinthians 13:7
So we can miss who Dad used to be and still love the Dad who is here today. We can miss a season and still receive the season we are in.
We can mourn a dream and still ask God what faithfulness looks like now.
Grief is not proof that we loved too much. It is evidence that something mattered, and that the God who matters most is still holding it.
And one day, grief itself will end:
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” — Revelation 21:4
Until that day, we walk it one faithful step at a time. That is what this week’s Swap is for.
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Your Bible Health Swap This Week
#021: Your Grief Survival Toolkit
This week’s Swap includes the Grief Survival Guide, Seven Areas Grief Touches, Seven Things to Remember When You Are Grieving, Seven Ways to Show Up for Someone Who Is Hurting, Conversation Card & Next Right Step Plan!
One Swap this week. One faithful step. A transformed life.
Learn more about the Bible Health Transformation Journey and start wherever you are.
“It has truly been amazing for me and my family as we find natural and Biblical ways to improve our health and wellbeing in our home.”
— Wendy J.
