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When my granddaughter comes for a sleepover at my home, there are some pretty routine things we do. We play cards, we make brownies, and we go over prayer requests at bedtime. The prayer request conversation may be short or span an hour, but one request remains the same. “Please ask God to tell Grandpa we love him.”

Most recently, she clarified, “We always love him and carry him in our hearts but we want him to know that.” I love her sweet heart so much, and I love that while years have passed, she still thinks of her Grandpa, inviting remembrances of him in our prayers.

As our conversation continued, I commented that Grandpa was getting to meet his believing great, great, great, great, great grandparents and my granddaughter said, “He’s probably met Adam and Eve by now!” I had to laugh at that! I can honestly say that thought had never crossed my mind! So then we imagined what he would say when he met Adam and Eve. “What were you thinking?!,” or, “Why’d you have to mess everything up for the rest of us?!,” or, “Couldn’t you just be content with all those other fruit trees?” This was a really fun conversation but it painted Grandpa’s new universe for us a little more—just imagining his new home of heaven and those he might be meeting there.

My husband is in a completely new world and my world without him has altered more than I could have envisioned. It may seem like a contradiction to say this, but I both hate that my beloved is gone and accept that he is gone.I first questioned if I was going to be okay. Now I know I will be okay and I accept my life. I still hate that we are separated by death, and I believe God is okay with that because death was never God’s plan and the consequence of original sin. So while I will continue to hate death, I will embrace life. I will appreciate how God provides for me in my new world—in all ways. God is as fully present with me as He is with my beloved. He is the One who spans it all.

For me, grief’s pain has gradually been pulled back by the tide of time, and what remains on the shoreline are some glistening treasures—the heart connections and precious conversations that are like pearls being added to a strand by God’s own hand. He is adorning my new world. It has taken time to see this process and arrive at this good shore.

Whatever your stage along grief’s journey, please join me now in a prayer for the glistening treasures yet to be revealed.

Heavenly Father, You love us and embrace us here today in all we are and all we aren’t. You understand us, even when we are trying to figure out which way is up. Give us glimpses of the treasures yet to be found on the shoreline. Grant us those heart connections and precious conversations which will fuel our hearts, and the divine eyes of faith in the darkness of grief. Please guide us by Your sight. We thank You, dear Lord. In Jesus Name. Amen