Several months after losing her mom, Carolyn Arends made an appointment with a grief counselor. ​“What’s wrong with me?” she sobbed. ​“People go through much harder things than this, but here I am, undone.”

This week in an article and on the Renovaré Podcast, Carolyn opened up her journey of how she learned in that season ​“to be as sad as she actually was.” She also hosted a webinar exploring how to grieve well (watch the replay here.)

These discussions are helping me recognize how I’ve confused processes, like grief or forgiveness, with understanding.

I believed if I could identify why something happened, or truly get a proper perspective — thinking about those who have it much worse, for example — then I’d be able to move on.

This attempted shortcut to spiritual and emotional health has never worked, however. The shortcut simply turns in on itself and becomes a loop of denial, irritability, and depression. As Trevor Hudson told Carolyn, ​“The only way through it is through it.”

Cultures of other places and times are better at grieving than we are in North America. Reading the end of Genesis this morning, I was struck by the length and severity of weeping over Jacob, who died at the ripe old age of 130. Joseph immediately throws himself on his father’s body and wails. Then there was a 40-day embalming process, a 70-day period of national weeping, then a memorial service with seven more days of mourning. After all of this the text says, ​“Realizing that their father was dead…” Clearly, these things take time to accept and process.

When after a loss we ask ourselves, ​“Is it supposed to hurt this bad?” stories like Jacob’s tell us ​“Yes, but there is a path through the pain.” We do not mourn as those who have no hope. But we do mourn.