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What to Do When You're Afraid to Be Joyful Again After Loss · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Speak: Sherry Miller was a young wife with a toddler and a baby
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  on the way when the call came. Her husband, Sean, a school band
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  director, had been killed in a car accident less than a mile
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  from the school where he taught. In the years that followed,
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  Sherry did the work of going through the grief. But something
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  caught her off guard. Every time she felt happy, every time she
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  laughed or smiled for a photo, a wave of guilt came with it. It
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  felt like being happy was a way of forgetting Sean, like joy was
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  a betrayal of the man she lost. The truth was, she had decided
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  that she wasn't allowed to be happy again, and she didn't even
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  realize she had made the rule. We'll come back to what Sherry
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  did with that rule, but
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  first, welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm
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  Bart Leger. I've done a lot of funerals over the years. I
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  remember one where the family went back to the house afterward
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  and put on more food than anybody could eat. Someone
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  started telling a story about the man we had just buried, and
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  the whole table started laughing. And I caught myself glancing
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  around to see who all was laughing. Those folks had
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  already settled something. They were grieving him, and they had
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  made the rest of their lives refusing to enjoy the time they
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  had left. If you've lost somebody, you probably know that
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  moment. Something on television is funny, or a friend says
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  something. You'll laugh before you think about it. Then it hits
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  you. A flash of guilt, as if being happy is a way of
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  forgetting the person you lost. It shows up in other places also.
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  The good day you had. The morning you woke up and thought
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  about something else first. Here's what makes that guilt so
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  convincing. It comes from a place of love. Somewhere along
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  the way, you decided the grief was the last thing tying you to
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  that person. So if the grief loosens its grip, you lose them
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  a second time, and you're not willing to let that happen.
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  Nobody says it has to be that way. You just start living like
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  it's a rule. Isaiah was writing to people who knew all about
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  mourning.
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  The ashes were something the mourner put on himself. In that
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  part of the world, grief had an outward look. You tore your
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  clothes, and you put ashes on your head. Anybody who saw you
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  knew what happened, and they knew you were grieving. So look
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  at what God does with them. He takes the ashes and hands back a
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  crown. In the Hebrew, those two words sound almost alike. Peer
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  and efer, nearly the same word turned around. A garland where
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  the ashes were, built out of the same letters. Notice who's doing
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  the handing. He will give. The whole verse runs that direction.
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  God does the exchange, and He does it inside the person who's
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  mourning. That changes what a laugh means. If gladness after
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  loss is something God hands a grieving person, then the guilt
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  that hit you the last time you laughed was accusing you of
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  something God did. You didn't manufacture it. It came from Him.
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  And I believe He gave it to you on purpose. Then look at how
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  Isaiah finishes. Jesus said, "The Lord has planted. The oak
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  is slow growing. A man plants one knowing he won't see it
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  fully grown. God is growing something in the person left
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  behind. And that takes years. The ache doesn't vanish on the
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  way. The oak and the ashes share the same ground." Jesus stood up
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  in the synagogue at Nazareth and read this passage out loud. He
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  stopped partway through and told the room it was being fulfilled
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  that day. Healing the brokenhearted is part of what he
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  came to do by his own account. So the gladness working its way
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  back into you has his hands on it. It took Sherry years to
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  question that rule she had made in her own life. Slowly, she
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  came to see that her happiness was not an insult to Sean's
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  memory. And that laughing again didn't mean she loved him or was
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  leaving him behind. More than five years after his death, she
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  wrote the words that set a lot of grieving people free. She
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  said, "I'm still allowed to be happy." The grief didn't
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  disappear. She just stopped treating joy like a crime. She
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  learned that a heart can hold the ache of what it's lost and
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  the gladness of being alive at the very same time. A heart can
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  hold both. That's the part most grieving people don't believe
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  they're allowed. They think one has to finish before they're
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  permitted the other. So they wait. And the waiting turns into
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  years. written for herself without knowing it was there.
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  There's today's challenge. Think back to the last time you
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  laughed and felt guilty about it. Think about what you believed in
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  that moment. It might be something like, "If I'm happy,
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  I'm forgetting him or I'm forgetting her." Then remember
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  Isaiah 61: 3. "Is this gladness something you're giving me,
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  God?" He already answered it in that verse and He will settle it
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  in you. And then do one thing this week you used to enjoy with
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  that person. Make the recipe. Put the game on. Let yourself
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  have it and let the ache be there too. Father, you promised
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  to crown where the ashes were and you promised to do the
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  exchange yourself. Thank you that the gladness coming back to
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  a grieving person is your work in them. For everybody listening
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  who's been refusing to be happy because it felt like a betrayal,
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  lift that off them. Let them laugh without glancing around
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  the room. Grow them into the oak you planted them to be and do it
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  at your own pace. In Jesus' name, amen. If Daily Devotions for
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  Busy Lives has been an encouragement to you, would you
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  take a minute and leave a rating and review? It helps more people
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  find these devotions and it only takes a moment. I'd be so
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  grateful. Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy
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  Lives. Remember, the crown of beauty is something God hands
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  you and He hands it to the people with ashes still on them.
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  You have permission to laugh again. Come back next time for
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  more encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth.
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  Until then, God bless and have a great day.