Brittney

“Grief is like water. It follows gravity. It finds the lowest part of you and hollows it out even more. It exploits your weaknesses. Grief goes where it wants with or without an invitation. It seeps into the empty spaces. It cannot be harnessed or redirected, at least not easily. It branches out from the headwaters of the main event into hundreds of tributaries. Few areas of your life remain untouched. New losses are discovered almost daily. Life progresses without the one you love in it, and you miss them all over again with every new season and every turn in the road.”
― Amanda Held Opelt, A Hole in the World: Finding Hope in Rituals of Grief and Healing

“I still believe that the ruler of this age prowls around like a lion looking for someone to devour. The mourner is the perfect prey, their faith upended, their sense of security shattered. When love is bereft of the object of its affection, it can easily wander off into the void. The Enemy’s tactic is total warfare. Nothing is off-limits or untouched.”
― Amanda Held Opelt, A Hole in the World: Finding Hope in Rituals of Grief and Healing

“If Jesus wore the scars of His sorrow and sacrifice into the resurrection, perhaps we will too. In the life to come, I’m guessing we’ll all have moved past the desire to perform or pretend. If it’s attention we are seeking, it will be to a different end. I think we’ll be communally reveling in the shared joy of having overcome, of persevering. Maybe then we will all look death in the eye and point proudly to our battle marks. With the same triumph of Christ, we will say, “Hey, Death, look what you did! But guess what? You did not win.”
― Amanda Held Opelt, A Hole in the World: Finding Hope in Rituals of Grief and Healing

“The soul is elastic, like a balloon. It can grow larger through suffering. Loss can enlarge its capacity for anger, depression, despair, and anguish, all natural and legitimate emotions whenever we experience loss. Once enlarged, the soul is also capable of experiencing greater joy, strength, peace, and love.”17 Grief uniquely outfits us to experience the joys of life.”
― Amanda Held Opelt, A Hole in the World: Finding Hope in Rituals of Grief and Healing