Favorite Grief Books. What an absolutely absurd phrase. But I feel like someone out there will find this list helpful so here we are. The first thing I want to say, is expressions of grief and understanding grief are polarizing topics. These books may resonate with you and they may not. I’m not offended to hear they don’t. We are all navigating this ugly path and while some poky brambles on my path may be similar to the ones on yours, I know they will never the same. Just know this list was created with hope that maybe a few words will bring specks of peace. And if so, it will have been worth it.

I want to share these books not with reviews but simply with passages that stood out to me and helped me through the darkest time I have ever experienced.

It’s Ok That You’re Not Ok by Megan Devine

“The reality of grief is far different from what others see from the outside. There is pain in this world that you can’t be cheered out of. You don’t need solutions. You don’t need to move on from your grief. You need someone to see your grief, to acknowledge it. You need someone to hold your hands while you stand there in blinking horror, staring at the hole that was your life. Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.” 

“When someone you love dies, you don’t just lose them in the present or in the past. You lose the future you should have had, and might have had, with them. They are missing from all the life that was to be.” 

“If you can’t tell your story to another human, find another way: journal, paint, make your grief into a graphic novel with a very dark storyline. Or go out to the woods and tell the trees. It is an immense relief to be able to tell your story without someone trying to fix it. The trees will not ask, “How are you really?” and the wind doesn’t care if you cry.” 

Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe by Laura Lynne Jackson

“Souls have deep connections and unique contracts that span centuries, exist back and forth in time, and bind us in ways we can’t really understand…. These connections are ancient and everlasting, and they already exist in our hearts, even if we’re not always aware of them.” 

“Prayer is when we direct our thoughts to God/the universe; meditation is when we listen back. It is not unusual to get downloads of information from the Other Side while meditating, because it creates a beautiful space for us to “listen back.” 

“Art in all its forms is a kind of dialogue between us and the entirety of existence, past, present, and future. It is us elevating our lives by elevating our energy.” 

How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed by Megan Devine

I don’t have quotes from this book because it is a journal. A journal that you should absolutely buy if you are dealing with any form of grief. Write in it and then rip the pages out and throw them into a fire if you have to. But write, please write.

It’s Not Supposed to be This Way by Lysa Terkeurst

“Sometimes to get your life back, you have to face the death of what you thought your life would look like.” 

“To trust God is to trust His timing. To trust God is to trust His way. God loves me too much to answer my prayers at any other time than the right time and in any other way than the right way. In the quietness of all that doesn’t feel right, this truth does.” 

“Humans are very attached to outcomes. We say we trust God but behind the scenes we work our fingers to the bone and our emotions into a tangled fray trying to control our outcomes. We praise God when our normal looks like what we thought it would. We question God when it doesn’t. And walk away from Him when we have a sinking suspicion that God is the one who set fire to the hope that was holding us together.”