There are moments in life that divide everything into “before” and “after.”

Losing my mama was one of those moments.

Grief didn’t come in a straight line.
Some days felt steady.
Some days felt like the ground dropped out from under me.
Some days I could breathe.
Some days I couldn’t catch my breath at all.

But there’s something she left me that changed everything.

She didn’t leave me money.
She didn’t leave me fancy things.
She didn’t leave me a perfect goodbye.

She left me a list of instructions.

Not written with her hand,
but created from her heart.

Because she called me her mama hen.
Because she knew taking care of people is my love language.
Because she trusted me to handle what mattered when she no longer could.

And she was right.
I did.
I always have.

Taking care of others has always been the way I love.
The part of me she leaned on the most.
The part she honored by leaving that list for me to carry out.

But the part I never expected…
is how much my faith would grow through losing her.

Not in the pretty, put-together way.
Not in the “Sunday best” kind of faith.
Not in the strong, confident believing I thought faith was supposed to look like.

My faith grew in the raw places.
The aching places.
The cracked-open places.

In the nights I cried.
In the mornings I couldn’t find my footing.
In the quiet moments after everyone else went back to their normal lives.

That’s where Jesus met me —
not when I was strong,
but when I was weak.

Not when I had answers,
but when I had none.

Not when I stood firm,
but when I could barely stand at all.

That’s when I realized what my mama really left me:

Not just a list of what needed to be done…

…but the faith she lived by,
the faith she carried,
the faith she anchored herself to even on her hardest days.

That faith became my inheritance.

If you’re grieving, or missing someone, or trying to find God in a season that feels too much…

You’re not failing.
You’re not broken.
You’re not alone.

Jesus meets you right where it hurts.
He sits with you in the sorrow.
And He strengthens you in the places where you feel the weakest.

You’re not walking this road by yourself.
Not for a moment.

— Meadow Grace
Walking out of the rain