Hurt Help Hope: A 5-Day Grief Devotional for TeensSample

Handmade, Heavenmade

Did you know that a small seed holds within it everything it needs to start a new plant? Every seed includes the “food” that will energize its initial growth into a sprout. It includes a little bit of moisture that will nourish it as the sun warms the soil. Every seed that is planted is a miniature universe of life just waiting to start.

By now, you can probably see the comparison. Like a seed, you’ve been buried in the soil of sorrow. It’s dark and cold, and it’s hard to see how anything could grow from this mixture of rocks of sadness and compost of old dreams and soil of dusty hopes and plans. Grief feels like falling to the ground and dying. From where life has planted you, you might think that your life will only ever be this—a single seed of that vibrant kernel of wheat life that used to be.

However, if you’ve spent any time around a garden, you know there’s more than meets the eye here. Burial is precisely what seeds need to grow. Darkness incubates them. Soil doesn’t smother, it cradles them. Where it might seem that death reigns, life is actually beginning to sprout. The same is true for you as you rebuild your life after loss. Regardless of how loss has reshaped your life, your life’s seed has been planted, and it’s time to grow.

There’s a lot of work before you as you learn to live with loss. We’ve talked about some of that work this week—the self-care, the emotional and spiritual honesty, the practical plans, and work that lies before you. But lest you think that this work will always be a drudgery or harvest only minimal results, hear the words of Jesus to you. “If [a single seed] dies, it produces many seeds.”

Growth after loss isn’t just a possibility. If you seek it out, it’s a probability. God asks you to step forward in trust and do the work that he has put before you. As you put your hand to the plow, as you cultivate the soil of your life, you’ll discover that your work isn’t only made by you. This handmade crafting of your life is also heavenmade. Paul describes it like this to the church at Philippi: “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6, NIV).

The death of your person is not the death of you. God has so much life ahead for you. I can’t wait to see you grow!

Was this plan helpful? This content was inspired by Hurt Help Hope: A Real Conversation About Teen Grief and Life After Loss by mother-daughter-duo, Clarissa and Fiona Moll. Learn more at https://www.tyndale.com/p/hurt-help-hope/9781496487247