Can grief really be healed?

A few months ago, my friend who’s a junior in high school tragically lost one of her best friends. She chronicled some of her grieving process on Instagram, posting photo collages, poems she wrote, and even singing her friend’s favorite song on her Instagram story. Through it all, one of the things she kept coming back to was that she would never stop grieving for her friend. Time would pass, the ache might lessen, but it would always be there.

While I understood the feeling, something within me rebelled at the notion that the pain of grief has to go on forever. There had to be a better answer, and I felt I found it in reading Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in the Bible. Among the list of eight “blessings” known as the Beatitudes, Jesus included this promise: “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).

Something within me rebelled at the notion that the pain of grief has to go on forever.

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