Why Doesn’t the Bible Feel True Anymore After Child Loss?
I KNOW IT’S TRUE. I JUST CAN’T FEEL IT.
You believe every word of it. So why can’t you feel a single one?
You can quote the verses, so why doesn’t the Bible feel true after child loss?
You have underlined them. You have heard them your whole life.
And then the house goes quiet, and it is just you and your thoughts — and none of it reaches you.
You believe it. You really do.
But somewhere between your head and your heart, something is not connecting. And you have started to wonder what that means about you.
I want to talk with you about that space today.
Because it is something almost every grieving mother carries, and no one has ever been able to explain it to her.
Knowing and Feeling Are Two Different Journeys
Here is what I want you to hear before we go one step further.
Knowing and feeling are two different journeys, and they almost never travel at the same speed.
Let me say that again, because it is the foundation of everything else.
Knowing — head knowledge — and feeling — heart knowledge — are two different journeys. And they almost never travel at the same speed.
Your mind can hold a truth long before your heart can carry it.
That is how grief works.
When Andrew died, I listened to the book of Job over and over and over, because I was looking for answers. I thought surely there would be an answer in the book of Job.
But they were just words that meant nothing to me.
It was as if I was just going through the motions, because nothing stuck. Nothing being said in the book of Job was resonating with me.
I was so numb, and in so much pain.
I knew in my brain that the Word of God had answers. But my heart was in so much pain that I could not comprehend what my knowledge of God was offering me.
Time Is No Longer Your Friend
This is one of the hardest parts for us as grieving mothers.
Time is our enemy.
We look at time through a very different lens when our children are no longer walking beside us. Even a comment like over time feels uncomfortable.
Time is no longer your friend after your child goes to heaven.
We have the life we lived before our children went to heaven. And we have the life we live after.
In our previous life, time was on our side. We would say things like I just need a little more time. We could think about the future and feel excitement, because we could plan something a year out — a bucket list trip, a bucket list purchase.
Time was our friend, because it gave us the ability to save and to have something to look forward to.
Then all of a sudden, time no longer holds value.
What we want vs What we are able to receive
And here is what I want to teach you.
We want everything God has for us in our grief journeys right now. But that is not how it works.
As a loving parent, only our Father in heaven knows when the timing is right to give us what we need.
And we are like toddlers, kicking and screaming, saying no, I want it now.
But the truth is, we cannot handle it now.
I say that with the most gentle spirit I have. And I say it because I have lived it. I have been exactly where you are.
All the years of teaching women’s Bible studies. All that head knowledge. All that wisdom I had gained no longer felt useful.
It felt foreign. Unfamiliar.
I was confused. My world was disoriented.
I no longer knew how to apply that wisdom and knowledge. None of it made sense.
It was not until God knew I was at a place in my grief journey where He could teach me something that He made known what He wanted me to hear.
God Listened for Thirty-Seven Chapters
Here is the truth.
God listened to Job for thirty-seven chapters before He said a word.
Job was not in a place where he was capable of grasping what God had to say to him.
But when God was ready to speak, He spoke — in chapter thirty-eight.
This is a pivotal part of my story. Because it was in that very moment, in chapter thirty-eight, that God spoke to me like a megaphone.
No, I did not hear God audibly. But He made the words jump off the page.
I was listening to the book of Job at the time, because I could not read it.
But on the day God decided was His timing for me to learn what He had to show me, those words sounded like a megaphone. And they got my attention.
Just as He said to Job, He said to me:
Teresa, I have been listening to you for thirty-seven chapters. Now I am going to ask the questions, and you are going to listen.
That is how it works.
Our head knowledge does not reach our hearts until the timing is right. And the waiting is so difficult.
But this is what He offers you in the waiting.
His presence.
“I Do Believe — Help Me Overcome My Unbelief”
There is a father in the Gospel of Mark who stood in this exact gap. And he said out loud what was on his heart. He did not hold back. He said it right to Jesus.
His son was suffering, and he had carried this for years.
He brought his little boy to Jesus and said, have mercy on us and help us if you can.
Does that not reflect our hearts as well?
But listen to what happened next.
Jesus responded, “What do you mean, ‘If I can?’ Anything is possible if a person believes.”
The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”
Mark 9:23–24, NLT
Let us sit here for a minute.
I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief.
That was me. And maybe it is you, too.
Both of those things can be true. It was true for him, and it is true for us.
In the same breath — in the same sentence — he expressed the tension he lived in.
There was no rebuke
The father knew who Jesus was. He sought Him out. That is why he came.
His head knew. But years of watching his child suffer had opened up a gap between what he knew and what he felt.
And instead of hiding it, he handed it to Jesus.
Here is what I want you to see.
There is no rebuke. Jesus did not scold him, send him away, and tell him to come back when his faith was tidy.
I do not read that anywhere in my book.
No — He received the honest, aching, divided prayer of a father whose heart was broken.
Belief and struggle can live in the same sentence. And God honors that. He does not rebuke it.
So hear me.
The gap between what your head knows and what your heart can feel does not disqualify you. It is not evidence that your faith is no longer serving you.
It is the honest place.
And the honest place is exactly where Jesus meets us.
Stop Judging It. Get Curious About It.
So what do you do while your heart catches up?
When that gap shows up — when the truth you know refuses to feel true — most of us do the same thing.
We judge it.
We grade our heart against our head, and we hand ourselves a failing score.
Here is the shift I want to offer you.
What if you could stop judging your thoughts, and instead get curious about them?
Because that is the place where we learn the most.
And when the words will not come, borrow that father’s prayer.
I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief.
That is a prayer God has already shown you He honors.
You do not have to close the gap. That was never your job.
Your job is to stay honest inside of the gap, and let Him do what only He can do — in His timing.
The Gap is Not Failure. The Gap is Where Your Heart is Catching Up.
Before you go, I want to bring you back to where we started — to the promise that this gap between your head and your heart would have a different name.
Here it is.
The gap is not failure.
The gap is where your heart is catching up.
And you do not have to wait alone.
God is not standing at the finish line tapping His foot, wondering why your heart is taking so long.
He is walking beside you at your heart’s pace. Just as He did with Job. Just as He did with me. Just as He did with that father and his divided prayer.
He did all of that without a word of rebuke.
And He is holding you right now, in the space between knowing and feeling.
My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.
Psalm 73:26, NLT
I had a mother say to me recently, Teresa, I cannot do this anymore.
Even when your heart grows weak like that. Even when it lags behind everything your mind knows — God remains the strength of that very heart.
He is not going anywhere. He is yours forever.
So here is your one small step this week.
The next time that gap is staring you in the face, do not judge it.
Just whisper: I do believe. Help me, Lord, overcome my unbelief.
And then let Jesus hold the rest.
🎧 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 315: Why Doesn’t the Bible Feel True Anymore After Child Loss?
In this episode I walk you through all of it — the season when the book of Job was nothing but words to me, the day God finally spoke, and the shift that changes what you do while your heart catches up. If you know the truth and cannot feel it yet, this one is for you.
Next Steps
✨ Calming the Chaos
Ready to have someone stand in the gap with you?
We think we can do this alone. So we lean on our own strength — and when our own strength fails us, we give up.
But sometimes what keeps us stuck isn’t a lack of strength. It’s that we don’t know what to do with everything happening inside of us.
That’s why I invite you into Calming the Chaos. I’ll teach you how to slow down, examine what’s happening in your heart without judging yourself for it, and discern what needs your attention and what doesn’t.
You can go at your own pace through three hours of teaching and a workbook that helps you take what you’re learning and actually apply it to your grief.
You don’t have to keep trying to figure all of this out on your own.
👉 Join me inside Calming the Chaos
With care and prayer,
Teresa Davis
