Encouraging While Empty: Speaking Hope in the Middle of My Hurt

It’s been awhile, but I’ve been navigating life after loss the best way I can. My last blog was When Grief Plants Seeds and Community BLOOMS, but this one feels different. This one comes from a deeper, messier place, the place I usually try to hide. The place where tears fall silently, prayers feel heavy, and I wonder if my words still matter.

I’ve got to be honest with you, this isn’t easy to write.

It feels strange, even hypocritical at times, to pour encouragement into others when my own heart feels shattered. I post scripture, I speak life, I tell others to hold on, yet some days I’m the one barely hanging on.

I worship God, I read His Word, I pray, I journal, I cry, and still, there are moments where the heaviness won’t lift. Moments where I feel like I’m losing the fight I keep telling others they can win.

Grief has a way of making you feel lost in your own life. It’s like waking up in a place you’ve never been, searching for things to do, only to realize the map you used to live by no longer works. Some days I feel strong, other days I feel like I’m standing in quicksand, sinking slowly while still smiling for the crowd. And yet, I keep showing up.

Not because I have it all together, but because I know what it’s like to be in the dark and need even the smallest flicker of light.

Despite my emptiness, encouraging others and being there for other Uniqfamilies brings joy to my sadness. It mends my broken heart piece by piece, as well as shows me clearly that this is my calling and purpose. There is a healing that happens when you walk alongside someone else in their valley, even while you’re still in yours.

Maybe that’s the truth I need to live out loud, that encouragement isn’t about being perfect, it’s about being present. It’s about saying, “I’m hurting too, but I believe God will carry us through.”

If you’re reading this and you feel stuck, defeated, or unsure of how to keep going, know that you’re not alone. You’re not less faithful because you’re tired. You’re not less spiritual because you have questions. God isn’t disappointed in your weakness, He’s leaning in closer to you because of it.

I’m learning that vulnerability isn’t hypocrisy, it’s honesty. And honesty makes space for healing, for connection, for hope to find its way back in.

So here I am, still grieving, still fighting, still worshiping, still believing, even on the days when I don’t feel like it.

Because my truth is this,

I don’t have all the answers, but I know the One who does.

And that’s enough for tonight.