When It’s Both

Sometimes the ache and the beauty show up at the same time.

A smile while your chest still feels tight.
A moment of peace — and a lump in your throat right behind it.
A baby laughing in your arms, while part of your mind drifts to all that you’ve lost.

We talk about “letting go” and “moving on” like healing is a clean break.
But what if it’s not?

What if healing is the moment you can finally hold joy and sorrow in the same hand —
and not feel like one cancels out the other?

I’m learning that I don’t have to wait until everything feels light to receive joy.
And I don’t have to push joy away just because something still hurts.

They can sit together.
They can belong together.
And maybe that’s what it means to be honest with our hearts —
making space beside the ache.

If your heart is holding both today —
joy and ache, hope and heaviness —
you are not alone.

---

Closing Prayer:

God,
For the one holding both joy and ache in her heart tonight —
would You remind her she doesn’t have to choose?

Help her feel Your nearness in the tension,
Your tenderness in the in-between,
and Your comfort in the spaces where sorrow and beauty sit side by side.

Thank You for being the kind of God who stays —
not just in the celebration,
but in the quiet, complicated middle, too.

Let her know she is not alone.
Let her rest in the truth that You see it all —
and You’re holding her through every bit of it.

Amen.