What Happens When the World Moves On?

Finding Mercies in the Seasons that Refuse to Change

Image created by Hillary M. Ramos and Midjourney AI

Summer used to be one of my favorite times of year. Despite the obvious inconveniences of Georgia humidity in late July and August, I truthfully loved summer. As a teen, the anxieties I felt during the school year subsided. As a college student, summer meant coming home, reconnecting with friends and trips to the beach. Summer was restful.

These were the daydreams that occupied my mind as I sat on a pull out bed in the pediatric ICU (PICU) one summer with my terminally ill child. I often pondered what it would feel like to relax by the pool with my husband and both of our kids. To plant my bare feet on white sandy shores. Peering out the window at the cars on the street below, I wondered if some were headed to those peaceful places.

It was strange feeling trapped. Struggling as a protective mother to ever leave my child’s side and yet also feeling like a tiger pacing back and forth in a cage. As I watched nurses clock in and clock out, as I counted the cars driving by, as I observed the birds nesting in the trees just outside my window…it felt as though the world was constantly moving forward.

And yet here we were. Stuck. Living any parent’s nightmare.

During one of our stays, the clock in our room stopped. For a moment, I thought about asking the nurse not to fix it. I found a kindred spirit in that clock. She was stuck, and so was I. Birds of a feather, I suppose. Or maybe they’d call that codependency.

In the two years we were blessed to have with our daughter, we constantly lived within the tension of gratitude and grief. We cherished every small milestone, every ounce of joy we could find. We never knew when a particular day could be our last, so we were grateful for every moment. And yet at the same time, our hearts ached. Not because of unbelief, but just because we are still human. Broken humans living in a broken world.

We often felt so helpless, especially during hospital stays, endless bouts of pneumonia, untreatable seizures. Part of that grief was the uncertainty—how long would we ride this merry go round of small joys woven within waves of trauma? How long would we be fighting for space to breathe as the world just kept moving forward? Then, when she died, part of our hearts died, too. But still…the world kept on moving.

I was about eight weeks pregnant with our third child when our daughter passed. In those early months of grief, I felt lost. I wasn’t showing yet, so I was in that stage of “this doesn’t totally feel real.” Even as life was forming inside me, I still felt frozen in grief. As if the seasons outside and the world around me refused to acknowledge what was broken within. A nightmare all over again where my entire world was shifting beneath my feet, yet I couldn’t find the strength most mornings to move from the couch to the shower.

It was summer again before long, and I was well into my second trimester. Summer. I finally dug my toes in the sand. We received news that our third child passed all genetic and anatomical screenings. There was a new life growing in my belly. The world was moving on.

But my heart was struggling to keep up.

How do you keep moving forward? When your grief is still raw, when the wounds are still fresh, how do you put one foot in front of the other?

One of the most isolating parts of the grief journey is feeling like everyone else around you has moved past the loss of the person you loved. Have they forgotten already?

Of course, not. But Satan would love for you to think that, wouldn’t he?

And this isn’t just true for grief as it relates to the loss of a loved one; it’s true for all seasons of suffering. There’s a point in our suffering, in our grief, where we feel ourselves groaning:

God everyone else has moved on. Why am I so alone here? Will this grief last forever?

Will this season of singleness ever end?

Will I ever carry a pregnancy to term?

Will I ever get another job?

Will my illness ever be cured?

Will my child ever come back home?

Will my spouse and I ever reconcile?

Will my friends ever connect with me again?

We often echo the psalmist here in these seasons don’t we? “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Psalm 13:1 ESV)

Satan would love for you to believe that you are forgotten in these seasons of suffering. That you are stuck, isolated, and alone. That you suffering is lacking in purpose.

…but God.

God meets us here. He doesn’t waste any season that we are in, even when it feels immovable. In the very book dedicated to faithful lament, Scripture promises us that God’s mercies are new each morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). In the midst of our grieving, our suffering, our struggle, God’s mercies are renewed every single day. You’re not stuck. He is working. Even if your circumstances don’t change, even while we “waste away” on the outside and grow older every day, inwardly, God is changing us (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). He is working in us. And that’s not a sign of stagnancy, it’s a sign of sanctification.

“Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”

Habakkuk 3:17-18 ESV

What happens when the world moves on? What happens when you feel like your grief lingers while everyone else keeps going? Truthfully…the world does keep going. But that does not mean you are forgotten. It is simply part of life under the sun. Time keeps moving forward, and so do we (sometimes slowly, sometimes haltingly) carrying grief with us. But we do not carry it alone. The Holy Spirit walks with us, sustaining us when the weight feels too heavy.

The day after Jesus’ crucifixion was a Saturday. For the world, it was just another day. But for the disciples, for the women who followed Him, it was a day of silence. Their Messiah lay dead in the tomb. Their grief was raw, their hope shattered. And yet…the sun still rose. The world kept turning. Saturday lingered heavy with sorrow. But just as the sun had risen on Saturday, it rose on Sunday, too. And with the rising of the sun, came the rising of the King (Matthew 27:57–28:10).

Seasons change. They do. The world keeps turning. And when we feel as though time and everyone else have left us behind, God never does. He stands ready to carry us forward, to meet us in the in-between, and to show us new mercies every morning.

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