When the Dam Wall Breaks
A tender unravelling of grief, where strength gives way to truth and tears begin to speak
🕯️Today was an exceptionally heavy-hearted and tear-filled day.
✍️ Two mothers. Six months apart. Both gone now to the same Beautiful Place. Both leaving behind the kind of absence that doesn’t announce itself all at once but seeps in slowly, like damp through old stone walls.
💔 Six months ago, I celebrated the life of Mom Delice — a woman who had loved me fiercely, prayed for me consistently, and left a mother-shaped hole in my world that no one else could fill. The weight of that reality settled in more deeply than it has before, as though something long held together quietly gave way.
Two weeks ago, we heard that Clive’s mom’s heart stopped on the operating table during what was meant to be a routine procedure. She was resuscitated, yet later stopped breathing in ICU and was placed on a ventilator, where she remained over the weekend.
On Monday morning, the ventilator was removed, and she seemed to improve slightly, yet then she plateaued. On Friday evening she was smiling, and then, during the night, she had a heart attack in her sleep and passed peacefully. Again we told ourselves she’s in a better place now. No more pain and suffering.
🪨I was at the Catch the Fire Freedom Weekend on Saturday when Clive messaged me halfway through a group session. I thought I’d be fine but had to accept an offer to be driven home becausxmy whole body was shaking.
I went to church on Sunday — not because I had faith to spare but because, like Hannah, I needed to be in the temple. I needed to put my body somewhere sacred when my heart had forgotten how to pray. There was a worship-only service that morning, and I stood there and let the music be my voice when mine had run dry. I put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, just as Isaiah promised I could, pouring out what words could not fully carry. There was a quiet mercy in the worship-only service, a sacred space where I could lay down the heaviness and, for a moment, clothe myself in praise even stayed for the second service and it helped. It truly helped.
📖 “To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” — Isaiah 61:3 (NKJV)
🕊️Still, the weight on my chest didn’t lift.
All week I pushed through, trying to be strong for Clive, holding myself together with the quiet discipline of someone who’s learned that falling apart in public feels like failure. I kept moving forward, pushing through each day, holding things together as best I could. Yet beneath the surface, the weight on my chest has been severe, pressing in with a heaviness that words cannot easily describe. Focus has been elusive, and even the simplest tasks have felt distant. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t create. The words wouldn’t come. The ideas felt far away, like voices on the other side of a heavy door. I kept telling myself it would pass. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.
🌱Today, something shifted.
When I saw Juls’ post marking six months since Mom Delice went home, something deep within me broke open. I realised, perhaps for the first time with clarity, that I have done a great deal of numbing since her passing. I had been told to celebrate, to rejoice that she is with Jesus now, and while that truth remains beautiful and eternal, my heart had quietly set aside its own need to grieve.
Scripture teaches us to weep with those who weep.
📖 “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” — Romans 12:15 (NKJV)
Yet somewhere along the way, we’ve forgotten how to simply sit with each other in the silence. Tears make us uncomfortable — so we reach for words. We reach for Scripture. We reach for encouragement and the call to be strong. All of it offered with love, all of it meant to help. Yet beautiful words offered too soon can do something we never intend: they can tell a grieving heart that its pain is too much, that the tears should give way to praise, that the mourning has gone on long enough. Slowly, quietly, the mourner learns to close the floodgates — to perform the strength that is expected, to set aside what hasn’t yet had space to breathe.
That is exactly what I did after Mom Delice died. I received the celebration. I received the truth that she is with Jesus. I leaned into it — because it was real, and because it was what was offered. My grief, still raw and unprocessed, tucked itself quietly behind the beauty of resurrection hope.
Today, the dam wall broke… My emotions were as turbulent as the weather we were experiencing.
The tears came, wave upon wave, unrestrained and unfiltered. I have been so unproductive, yet perhaps this is not unproductivity at all, but the soul finally speaking what it was never meant to silence.
The weight on my chest has not yet lifted. It feels as though the tears may never stop.
📖 “Jesus wept.” — John 11:35 (NKJV)
🕯️There is something sacred in this place, even in its ache. Jesus Himself did not rush past grief, nor did He silence it with truth alone. He entered it. He honoured it.
Perhaps today is not about fixing the heaviness, nor about finding strength to carry it differently. Perhaps today is simply about allowing the tears to fall, knowing they are seen, held, and counted by the One who understands sorrow more deeply than we ever could.
📖 “You number my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle; are they not in Your book?” — Psalm 56:8 (NKJV)
🕊️
I have carried much.
I have been strong.
I have stood.
I have held space for others.
Now, there is grace to be held.
🌱 I’m not yet sure what the Becoming looks like from the inside of a very hard week. What I do know is this: the dam had to break. The water had to find its way out. Grief held too long turns to stone inside us — and I don’t want a stone in my chest where tenderness should live.🕯️ So today, I let myself cry. Tomorrow, I’ll let myself cry again if I need to. I’ll take up the garment of praise when strength returns — not to perform, but because I genuinely believe that God inhabits the praises of His people, and I want to live in the house He inhabits.
🙏 Mom Delice — I see your face in my memory and I smile through the tears. You pointed me to Jesus. That is the most extraordinary legacy a mother can leave.
🙏 Mom Ann — I carry the gift of you into everything that comes next.
✍️ Story in a Sentence:
“I thought I was being strong; God knew I was building a wall — and today, with the gentlest grace, He let it fall.”
🪨 My Life Verse in this Season:
📖 “To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” — Isaiah 61:3 (NKJV)
💡Reflection:
“You don’t have to have it all figured out to begin. Your story matters — even the parts that still hurt, even the chapters you’d rather skip. Take a moment with these questions and let the Holy Spirit lead you gently…”
- Is there a grief you’ve been quietly numbing — perhaps because you were told to celebrate, or to be strong, or to move on before you were ready? What has that cost you? 🤔
- When did you last give yourself permission to simply cry — without explanation, without apology, without rushing toward the redemption? What might it mean to receive that permission today? 🤔
- What does it stir in you to know that God keeps your tears in a bottle — that not one is unnoticed, not one falls outside His awareness or His care? 🤔
- Is there someone in your life who has left a mother-shaped, father-shaped, or beloved-shaped absence? Have you named that loss fully, or have you learned to walk around it? 🤔
- Where in your own story is God inviting you to stop moving long enough to feel — to let the dam break, to let the water out, to make room for the gold? 🤔
🎺Affirmation:
Even in the breaking, you are not falling apart, you are being gently uncovered.
You are not weak for weeping. You are not behind for grieving slowly. You are not broken beyond repair for the months you spent numbing instead of feeling — you were doing the best you could with what you had, and grace covers every day of it.
You are a beloved child of God, deeply and extravagantly loved. Your losses are known. Your tears are counted. Your heart, however cracked and hollowed by goodbye, is the very vessel He has chosen to fill with gold.
The dam was always going to break. This is not the end of something — it is the beginning of the real healing. Let the water flow. Let the tears come. The Potter is not finished with you yet.
🕊️ “And if this is your story too — even a fragment of it — know that you are not alone. God sees. God knows. God redeems.”
🙌 Prayer:
“Lord, I lay this story — all of it — at Your feet. The beautiful parts and the broken ones. Take it, and let it be of use…”
Father, today I come to You with eyes that are swollen and a chest that is heavy, and I don’t dress it up. You already know. You’ve been watching all along — through the months of numbing, through the performances of strength, through the Sunday worship I clung to like a lifeline, through the moments I held it together for everyone else. You saw every bit of it. You saw me.
You saw every tear that has fallen today and every one still waiting to fall. You know the weight that sits on my chest, the grief I have carried quietly, and the strength I have tried to hold for others.
Thank You that I do not have to be strong in Your presence. Thank You that You meet me in my sorrow, not with pressure, but with compassion. Teach me to grieve with You, not alone. Gently lift what feels too heavy, and where it does not lift yet, hold me steady beneath it.
Restore what has been numbed. Soften what has been held too tightly. Let Your peace begin to settle, even if only in small, quiet moments.
Lord, I ask You now to come into the broken places. The numb places. The places where I built a wall instead of letting myself weep. Bring Your gentle healing. Bring the oil of joy for my mourning. Bring the garment of praise to replace this spirit of heaviness — not as a performance, but as a gift I receive from Your good hands.For every soul reading this who carries their own grief quietly, their own dam wall holding back waters that need releasing — meet them here. Let them feel Your nearness.
Remind them that You wept too. Remind them that their tears matter to You. Remind them that the cracks in their heart are not too deep for Your gold.We trust You with what we cannot hold. We trust You with the ones we love who’ve gone on ahead. We trust You with the pieces of ourselves we haven’t known how to grieve.Come, Holy Spirit. Gentle us into wholeness.
I trust that You are near, even here.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
🕯️ If you’re sitting somewhere today with a cold cup of tea and tears you’ve been holding for too long — I see you. More than that, He sees you. The grief that’s been living in your chest has a name, and it’s love.
Love doesn’t stop aching just because the person is with Jesus. It simply finds a new shape.
Let the dam break, friend. Let the water out.
The Potter’s hands are already under the fragments.
He is near. He is gentle. He is not finished.
