When Comfort After Child Loss Never Seems to Last
WILL THE PAIN OF LOSING MY CHILD EVER GO AWAY?
Why the deepest comfort after child loss begins in the place we are most afraid to go.
Finding comfort after child loss can feel like reaching for something that is always just out of your grasp.
You do everything you can to get through the day. And when the weight becomes too heavy to carry, you reach for whatever takes the edge off.
The extra plate of food when you were never even hungry. The glass of wine that quietly became two. The scrolling. The endless busyness.
For a moment, it helps. The edge softens. You can breathe.
But the comfort never lasts. And the ache always finds its way back the moment the house goes quiet.
If that is where you are today, I want you to know you are not doing anything wrong. And you are not alone.
Come and sit with me here for a little while.
What I Learned Watching My Father Plow
I was raised on a hundred-acre farm. We lived off the land, with four gardens to tend.
And when I was a little girl, one of the things I loved most was watching my dad plow the garden.
He would drive the plow through the dirt, turning it over, digging down deep.
I didn’t understand what he was doing back then. To me, dirt was simply dirt.
But my dad knew something I did not.
The soil that had been sitting on top — weathered by life, beaten down by the sun and the wind and the harshness of winter — could not support much of anything. The nourishment had gone out of it.
So he never planted there.
He plowed down underneath and turned up the fresh soil — the ground that could still hold life. And that is where we planted the potatoes, deep in the freshly turned earth.
I did not know it then. But I was watching a picture of what grief would one day do in me.
Because here is what I have come to understand about grief.
Grief unearths the soil that has been sitting on top of our lives. It digs all the way down to the very foundation we have built our life upon.
After my son Andrew went to heaven, everything was turned over. And everything in me wanted it to stop.
We want to cover it back up. We want to pack it back down. We do not like the vulnerability of all that exposed ground.
But this is what I have found to be true.
That fresh, turned-over soil is the only place where new life can grow.
The Verse I Taped to My Computer
There is a verse in the book of Isaiah that I almost could not bear to read.
“To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory.” — Isaiah 61:3, NLT
The first time I read those words, I closed my Bible.
Honestly, I did not believe them. My pain was so severe that simply looking at the words made me feel sick.
But the verse stayed with me.
So I wrote it out on an index card and taped it to the bottom of my computer, where I would see it every single day. I held onto it as a promise.
Great oaks, planted by the Lord.
Let us think about that for a moment. What kind of soil does a mighty oak grow in?
A mighty oak has deep roots. That is what makes it mighty. That is what allows it to stand through the storms that would take anything else down.
But how does an oak grow roots that go down so deep?
Why the Drought Is Not Your Enemy
The answer is the drought.
The drought is what sends an oak’s roots searching downward, deeper than they have ever had to reach before.
And for a grieving mother, the drought is the waiting. It is that long stretch where nothing seems to bring relief, no matter how much you long for it.
In the waiting, we are given a choice.
We can reach for the comfort that sits right in front of us, because it is easy and it is near. But surface comfort only ever keeps our roots on the surface.
Or we can allow our roots to grow down deep.
Scripture shows us where real comfort actually comes from.
“God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others.” — 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, NLT
God is the source of all comfort.
Not the food. Not the wine. Not the busyness we fill our hours with.
Those things were never the source. They were only ever a substitute for the One who is.
Choosing Him in the waiting — even when it does not feel good — is what it means to grieve God’s way.
Why You Cannot See What God Is Growing
So often we long for a light switch moment.
We want the light to come on all at once, and for everything to suddenly make sense.
And sometimes those moments do come. But they are not what long-term growth looks like.
This is where so many of us grow discouraged. Because we cannot see the roots growing beneath the ground.
You can stand in front of an oak tree all day long and never see it grow a single inch.
But make a mark on that tree, and return a year later. You will see growth that was happening all along, right before your eyes, even when you could not see it in the moment.
An oak is not made in a single season.
It is growing, down where you cannot see — slow, and deep, and sure.
And that is what God is doing in the turned-over soil of your grief.
You will not see it in the day to day. But He is growing something in you, with roots that go down deep. Something the storms cannot take.
The Harvest That Begins in Tears
There is one more picture I want to leave with you. It holds the same soil, the same seed, the same waiting.
“Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.” — Psalm 126:5-6, NLT
The tears you are crying right now are not falling for nothing.
They are seen by your heavenly Father. He is collecting every one of them in His bottle. He sees your broken heart, and He is nearer to you than you know.
The tears you are planting today are going to grow those seeds.
You may not see the harvest yet. The ground may still look bare. But He is faithful. And what is planted in tears will one day reap a harvest.
I know, because I have walked this path. I planted in tears. And in His faithfulness, He has grown a mighty oak where I once believed nothing could ever grow again.
He will do the same for you.
🎧 Listen to the Full Episode
If these words have met you where you are today — there is more waiting for you in this week’s episode.
🎙 Episode 293: Will the Pain of Losing My Child Ever Go Away?
In this episode, I sit with you in the ache and walk gently through what grief is truly doing beneath the surface — and how the comfort you have been longing for finally begins to take root.
Next Steps
✨ Calming the Chaos
When you are ready to stop reaching for the surface and begin the deeper work of grieving God’s way, Calming the Chaos is here to walk beside you. Together we gently uncover what lives beneath the guilt, the fear, and the doubt, make sense of who you are becoming, and begin learning how to truly live again — all at your own pace, with a workbook to carry you through each step.
👉 Begin Calming the Chaos here
With care and prayer, Teresa Davis
