I think there's an expectation that once you finally make the decision you've been wrestling with, you're supposed to feel better.
You thought about it. Prayed about it. Questioned it approximately 400 times. Probably talked somebody else's ear off about it.
Then you finally do the thing.
And there is relief.
For about five minutes.
Then you're crying over something you didn't expect to miss and wondering why this supposedly right decision feels so much like loss.
That's confusing.
Because if leaving was right, shouldn't you feel... I don't know... happier about leaving?
I think that's one of the stranger parts of transition. We tend to treat grief like evidence that we made the wrong choice.
If I miss it this much, maybe I shouldn't have left.
If this hurts, maybe I wasn't really ready.
If I'm still sad about it, maybe I need to go back.
Except grief doesn't necessarily tell you whether the decision was right.
Sometimes it just tells you something mattered.
That's been important for me lately.
I recently closed a chapter that had been a significant part of my life for years. And we've already talked about the fact that it wasn't all bad. Quite the opposite. There were people I loved, work I cared about, things I learned, experiences that changed me and a version of myself that existed inside that world for a long time.
I didn't stop caring about any of that the day I decided it was time to leave.
Apparently my emotions did not receive the memo that we had made a decision and were therefore supposed to move along now.
Annoying.
I mean, there were things I knew I wouldn't miss.
But there were also things I didn't realize I would miss until they weren't part of my life anymore.
The rhythm.
The people.
Being known in a certain way.
Knowing exactly what I was doing and where I fit.
Even some of the things I'd been ready to move beyond could suddenly feel strangely comforting once they weren't mine anymore.
That's the thing about familiar.
It doesn't have to be perfect to feel like home.
And when you leave something familiar, you're not only giving up what wasn't working. You're also giving up the parts that were.
I think sometimes we try to protect ourselves from that grief by rewriting the old chapter.
We start focusing exclusively on what was wrong with it. We make the people worse. The experience worse. We convince ourselves we were miserable the whole time because somehow that makes leaving easier to justify.
But I don't want to do that.
I don't need the old chapter to become bad for the new one to be right.
That feels important.
Because when we turn every ending into a verdict, we lose the ability to honor what something actually was.
A friendship can change and still have been beautiful.
A career can end and still have mattered.
A community can stop being yours and still have loved you well.
A dream can change without becoming embarrassing evidence of who you used to be.
You can even miss something you absolutely do not want back.
That one feels particularly unfair, doesn't it?
But it's true.
I can miss a version of my life without wanting to live it again.
I can miss who I was there without needing to become her again.
And I can grieve people, routines and experiences while still knowing I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
Those things can coexist.
We do ourselves a disservice when we demand that one feeling cancel out the other.
I'm relieved, so I shouldn't be sad.
I'm sad, so I must not really be relieved.
What if you're both?
Humans are terribly inconvenient that way.
Faith gives me language for this because Scripture never treats grief like a failure of faith.
People grieve things God is leading them through.
They mourn what was.
They lament.
They ask questions.
Jesus Himself wept even when He knew what came next.
So I don't think faithfulness requires us to rush through the sadness so we can prove how excited we are about whatever God is doing next.
Sometimes the faithful thing is simply telling the truth:
This was right.
And this hurts.
I think there's honor in letting both be true.
Because grief isn't always asking you to go backward.
Sometimes it's helping you say goodbye.
And saying goodbye takes longer when what you're leaving actually meant something.
So if you've made a decision you believe was right and you're surprised by how much you're grieving it, don't immediately put the decision back on trial.
You can miss it.
You can cry.
You can have a day where the old life suddenly looks easier from a distance.
You can feel grateful and sad and relieved and unsure in the same afternoon.
None of that automatically means you need to turn around.
It means you're letting go of something that was part of you.
Give that the dignity it deserves.
You don't have to make the old chapter smaller to keep walking into the new one.
Want to keep going with this conversation?
🎧 Listen to Episode 56: Why Your Heart Still Hurts After the Right Decision. →