After the Breaking…

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

Isaiah 43:18-19

There are moments when life splits into a before and after.

Before the heartbreak. Before the diagnosis. Before the funeral.
And then—after.

The “after” can feel like wandering through a house that used to be home but now feels like wandering through a strangers house, living someone else’s life. What once felt solid now feels fragile. What once was normal, now a distant memory, almost as if the old “normal” never truly existed.

Well-meaning people will try to help, most hand you spiritual band-aids too small for the soul-sized gash bleeding out your life.

But God…

Jesus doesn’t rush you through grief. He doesn’t avoid the hard questions. He comes low. He sits in the ashes. He knows the grave. He weeps outside tombs. And then—He speaks resurrection.

The Gospel is not about “getting over it.” It’s about grace meeting us in the wreckage, refusing to let us stay buried. Jesus doesn’t wait on the shore for you to pull yourself together. He walks out on the waves of your pain and meets you in it.

A Story of New Life After Loss: Horatio Spafford

Horatio Spafford knew heartbreak that shattered everything. A successful lawyer in the 1800s, he lost his son to illness, his real estate empire in the Great Chicago Fire, and then—in horrendous climax—his four daughters in a shipwreck across the Atlantic.

Grieving, he sailed to join his wife, who alone had survived. As the ship passed over the waters that swallowed his daughters, he wrote:

“When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.”

Those words didn’t come from comfort.
They came from the deep—where faith has to float even when everything else sinks.

Spafford didn’t move on. He moved forward—not because the pain disappeared, but because the presence of God became his anchor.

What Now?

Healing rarely announces itself with fanfare. It begins quietly—like a green shoot breaking through cracked concrete.

So what do you do when moving forward feels impossible?

Start small.
Name your heartbreak out loud
—what it was, what it cost, what it still does.
Then ask God—not for clarity, not even for closure—but for presence.

Pray, “Jesus, I don’t know how to move forward, but I trust You’re already ahead of me. Do something new in me, even here.”

You don’t have to pretend you’re okay.
You don’t have to forget what was lost.
You just have to believe that resurrection doesn’t depend on how strong you are—but on how near He is.

Your story didn’t end at the breaking.
God writes His best work in the rubble.