by Kathy Brasby | May 29, 2025 | Listening
God’s Sweet Melody
About a year after my husband, Matt, died, memories of his hospitalization flooded my mind one morning. I wrote to God: “Lord, today I feel the heaviness of grief and loss. Tears prickle my eyes. Please help me. I’m not even sure what to ask for, but I’ll wait for your words.”
I sensed God’s presence:
You long for the sweet notes of a violin or the beautiful harmony of a choir. Harsh notes grate in this broken world. There is no perfect song in this world and no getting away from your loss.
What I give is not escape from discord and brokenness, but steps into the one love that is never broken: my love.
You hurt because you love, but the gift of love is also a treasure.
This world is raspy and rough, and your heart is raw and wounded. Let the tears come when they will.
But have you noticed that with the pain comes the memories–of love and joy and sweet relationship?
This world’s bitter tones need not win. They need not steal away those loving memories.
Remember that I whisper words of perfect love. I am the sweet violin notes, the beautiful choir harmony.
I am the sweet melody of love. And much more.
Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you
Deuteronomy 31:8
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.
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by Kathy Brasby | May 20, 2025 | Listening
As you walk forward, feel the smooth path beneath your feet. Smell the fragrance of new grass. Taste the dewy air that settles around you like a warm hug. Listen to the songs, the birds, and crickets and shuffling of small animals in the grass.
You do not walk alone. I have never left you and my creation reaches out.
And if remembering my love is still difficult, look to those who’ve chosen to journey with you.
Others have sent you notes of support and love. Embrace those as gifts from me.
I am here. I will catch you if you stumble and I will hold you close. I am with you, even in the valleys of darkness and death. I never leave you.
Let my creation embrace you.
“For I am about to do something new.
See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.
The wild animals in the fields will thank me,
the jackals and owls, too,
for giving them water in the desert.
Yes, I will make rivers in the dry wasteland
so my chosen people can be refreshed.”
Isaiah 43:19-20
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by Kathy Brasby | May 14, 2025 | Listening
Plan a day to walk in my sunshine.
The days lengthen, and the sun sends warmth. Winter’s snow is gone and buds pop in bright colors. Today, the air wraps around you like a tender embrace.
Walk in the sunshine and sing our songs together. Sing of love and mercy and strength.
Step forward with courage. Smell the crisp air of spring. Of newness and of life.
You begin the walk into this year without Matt. It’s a new year for you, though.
Let the sunshine kiss your cheek and let the wind brush back your hair. Lean into a warm embrace. My loving embrace.
Plan a day in my sunshine and my love.
“For the mountains may move and the hills disappear, but even then my faithful love for you will remain. My covenant of blessing will never be broken,” says the Lord, who has mercy on you.
Isaiah 54:10
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.
Another a grief resource for Christian women. God wants to comfort us in our grief.
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by Kathy Brasby | May 6, 2025 | Listening
My child, you often think that your purpose fled when your loved one passed away.
You assume new purpose must be grand to mirror what your loved one gave you.
But … don’t my sparrows have a purpose?
They sing with joy.
They protect their young.
They fly freely.
Does anyone write a memorial to their legacy? Yet I see and know each one. I treasure their purpose.
To live is to have value, my child. Grief doesn’t have to extinguish joy and purpose.
Let me do work in your spirit, and you can be like a sparrow, safe with me. Treasured by me.
Sparrows sing with joy. So can you.
What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows. Matt 10:29-31
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.
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by Kathy Brasby | Apr 29, 2025 | Listening
The mist before you swirls and obscures your path. You can’t push it aside, but you can walk through it.
This mist of grief hides the path which you’re on, but it thins as you take more steps.
I have never left you, as I promised from the start. You never walk alone.
You persevered–even when you couldn’t see your feet below you. Healing comes even when the path is obscured, because it truly is there.
Grief teaches truths you did not know before. You’re finding that you are changed forever by loss, because you risked love.
You loved, so you mourn. Don’t let go of that love, even in your pain. Allow grief to teach you to love more expansively and exuberantly.
You know the pain, and it can be endured. You know the cost of love, and you have survived.
This is a lesson of grief: you can love, knowing you could survive a fall.
In the mist, healing can happen. Transformation occurs.
Embrace each step and learn each lesson.
I am with you always, to the end of the eternity..
Take the steps with me, even when you can’t see your path.
Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.
Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you.
I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.
Isaiah 41:10
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.
Another a grief resource for Christian women
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by Kathy Brasby | Apr 18, 2025 | Listening
Note: this post is a little different from the usual Listening Project posts because it’s from my perspective. But I think God directed these words and maybe they will give you hope in your grief.
For Christians, today is often overlooked–the day after Jesus’ crucifixion and the day before Easter. The in-between day.
But then I thought of the grief that the friends and followers of Jesus felt as he lay in the tomb.
I understand the numbness, the finality, the cold, hard grief that descended on them like an unexpected hailstorm, devastating their hearts and faith.
It’s easy to forget that those people faced searing agony. That in-between day had to be one of crushing loss of a beloved friend and the apparent shattering of the dreams they had about Jesus as the Messiah.
They had been slammed against a jagged wall of loss, and I understand their deep pain.
Their grief directly correlates to our grief.
But here’s the crucial part: their grief ended with the unbelievable joy of resurrection.
Our pain of losing loved ones is not the final word, but only a temporary state. We live in that in-between time now.
It is crushing at times. Searing and empty. Like for those friends of Jesus.
But resurrection is coming for us as well.
As his body was taken away, the women from Galilee followed and saw the tomb where his body was placed. Then they went home and prepared spices and ointments to anoint his body.
Luke 23:55-56
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.
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