A Psalm For Grief And Loss

Holy One who dwells in the hidden chambers of the heart,

You are present where the light does not easily reach.

I did not choose this tearing.

I did not consent to this absence.

What was once flesh and voice and warmth is now memory and air.

The chair remains.

The silence speaks.

My body knows what my mind cannot reconcile.

It searches for what is no longer here.

It waits for footsteps that will not come.

Even in sleep,

It listens.

Receive this ache as a prayer.

I do not ask you to erase my sorrow.

I ask only that it not consume me.

Hold the edges of my grief when they grow sharp.

Steady the waves when they rise without warning.

You have made a world where love binds us and time unbinds us.

Teach me how to live inside that paradox without hardening.

If loss is the price of loving,

Let me not regret that I loved.

Guard the memory of what was shared.

Refine it.

Separate the pain from the blessing so that what remains is clean.

And when the weight feels unbearable,

Breathe through me.

Let this sorrow widen my heart without breaking it.

Let it make me gentler,

Not smaller.

For what I grieve is what I cherished.

And what I cherished was real.