The Listening Project Archives

A Day in God’s Embrace

by Kathy Brasby | May 14, 2025 | The Listening Project

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

Another a grief resource for Christian women. God wants to comfort us in our grief.

Finding Purpose in Small Moments: A Sparrow’s Lesson

by Kathy Brasby | May 6, 2025 | The Listening Project

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

Walking Through Grief’s Mist

by Kathy Brasby | Apr 29, 2025 | The Listening Project

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

Another a grief resource for Christian women

In-Between Day Offers Hope

by Kathy Brasby | Apr 18, 2025 | The Listening Project

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

Beyond The Storm

by Kathy Brasby | Apr 16, 2025 | The Listening Project

The storm has passed, although its lashing winds and roaring thunder buffeted you more than you thought you could bear.

But now…

Yellow flashing light shreds the clouds, and golden lines spread across the sky. An explosion of light.

I am like that light, breaking through barriers and filling the dark places with my glory.

Grip my words and push dark thoughts of sorrow and heaviness into a locked trunk.

We’ve wept together for your losses in the storm, but we now walk together in victory.

Remember my words and my promises. Life pulsates in my kingdom. This world’s storms are not the end of the story.

I am the light that shatters the darkness. I am the glow of joy and life and freedom.

Take control of your thoughts that could lead you astray, and choose to follow my lead. Trust me on this day.

I am with you in the storm. And after.

Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble,
and he saved them from their distress.
He calmed the storm to a whisper
and stilled the waves.
What a blessing was that stillness… Let them praise the Lord for his great love and for the wonderful things he has done for them.

Psalm 107:28-31

Note: Grief2GreatDay provides faith-filled resources for Christian women going through life’s hardest season.

Take Flight, My Love

by Kathy Brasby | Apr 7, 2025 | The Listening Project

The eagle gathers herself for only a moment. Then she spreads her wings. Can you hear the powerful whoosh, the strength of those wings as she launches herself into the wide-open atmosphere?

The hardest part is the liftoff, when she needs strong muscles to leave the ground. Then she can seek out the sky’s currents.

Everything appears different from this new perspective. To stay on the ground limits vision. So much can be seen once the eagle lifts off.

Don’t stay on the ground, my love. That choice feels safe in your grief but it obscures your view.

Please: no more hiding in the bushes. Find the courage to talk to others, to participate, to join where once you would have laid low.

You will be exposed, but you have strength like an eagle when you trust in me.

Don’t fear the open skies. Take flight in the strength I give you.

Soar.

But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:31

A Day in God’s Embrace

Like this:

Finding Purpose in Small Moments: A Sparrow’s Lesson

Like this:

Walking Through Grief’s Mist

Like this:

In-Between Day Offers Hope

Like this:

Beyond The Storm

Like this:

Take Flight, My Love

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