Reason for Rain

I had originally planned to post an article on the topic of comparison and envy; however, something came up that made me reconsider and pushed me to postpone the publication of that article.

Pain and grief are both things that we all have or will encounter in life at some point or another. Whether the loss of a family member or a dear friend, grief is one of the hardest emotions to face head-on. The pain it brings creeps up on you at the most inconvenient times, and the weighty memory of their now absent presence layers burden after burden upon your heavy heart. You almost feel guilty when you forget an important date or thing about them, and suddenly the grief floods over you once again. The pain never fully fades away, even after it seems your heart has healed. That sunflower picture makes you smile when you remember their love for the flower. Every time you see a lighthouse you can't help but wish you could show it to them, but you can't.

You wish you could, but you can't. You wish you did, but you didn't. You wish, but wishing never gets you very far.

Grief has a way of wrapping itself around your heart and etching pain into your very essence. Perhaps you wish you would have talked to them more. Perhaps you wish you would have been nicer to them or listened to their stories with undivided attention. Perhaps your guilt is where most of the grief comes from.

There used to be a time where I would remember my cousin, and anger would impress bitterness upon my heart. I felt that the Lord had taken her too early. I was filled with anger towards God for taking her so suddenly, and I felt bitterness towards my grandmother because I believed she was to blame for the fact that I didn't get to talk to her one last time.

Grief wants someone to blame, and pain wants someone to hurt alongside you. But healing and peace don't come from blaming or wishing pain upon others. Healing only comes from Him who created the heart, and one cannot fully experience complete closure, healing, or peace unless they seek Him and Him only.

"He heals the brokenhearted
And binds up their wounds." Psalm 147:3

No death, no illness, no accident happens by chance. God doesn't just sit and let things happen by accident or chance; He sustains the turning of the earth, He forms us in our mother's womb and knows us before anyone else, He clothes even the flowers of the field so that they neither toil nor spin. The Lord Jesus tells us that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without His hand directing it, and how much more does He care for us, beings created in His image, that He shouldn't let even one of us perish without Him ordaining it to pass?

"Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows." Matthew 10:29-31

We, as finite beings, may think that someone died before their time, but God, in His infinite, all-knowing, all-sovereign nature, ordains it to be otherwise. Every day of our lives are numbered by Him, and nothing we do can take us before or keep us longer than He has planned; we are assured of this very truth by Job when he says,

"Since his days are determined,
The number of his months is with You;
You have appointed his limits, so that he cannot pass." Job 14:5

There are so many times I wish I would have spent more time asking my missionary aunt about her time overseas, or paying attention to my great-grandmother's memories, but no matter how hard or how much I wish to redo things it seems that time continues to move forward minute by minute. I've asked God before why He took them before I could get to know them deeper, or before their stories could be told, and my anger and bitterness towards Him hasn't allowed me the chance to go back and change the past.

Regret is often a feeling that likes to accompany the grief, and it likes to convince us that everything that went wrong was our fault, and that if we only grieve over our mistakes enough, then maybe we'll be able to get the past back. It doesn't present that agenda at face-value of course, but deep down that is the main mission. And, in a way, we do get the past back, but to live in the past we have to forsake the present, hurting those around us in the now in order to get those back from the past. And that, dear Lily, is not living.

There are many verses in the Bible that address forgetting former things and setting our minds on the road ahead. This may cause some to shudder, for the future is twisty, unknown, and utterly frightening. Why not focus on the past, which has been set and done and is fully known, rather than looking towards the future, which is full of unknowns and things that cannot be forced. The past holds mistakes, yet at the same time it holds memories of times you can never have back— times filled sharing a good laugh, smile, or cry with someone who is no longer around. The future holds unknowns, yet at the same time it holds new adventures, new friends, and a new day in which you can make new mistakes and be forgiven.

I once wrote a poem on this subject, and as I reread it I think it does well to explain this predicament that we may find ourselves in when struggling with the past and future.

I look at the turn ahead;
The road swerves sharp.
The unknown fills me with a sense of dread,
The road I see looks so warped.

Folks tell me not to look at the past,
Yet looking forward sometimes feels worse.
The future I see, it is so vast;
My road ahead looks more accursed.

I tuck my memories in my mind,
For when the future gets too hard.
I’ll remember the time when I was nine,
When life wasn’t quite so marred.

While the future may look scary, and the past may hold regrets, both are ultimately in the Lord's hands and have been since before you were born. David acknowledges the Lord's sovereignty over our lives, and how He has personally designed each day of our lives for us. The following verse brings me so much comfort, for I know that my mistakes, my regrets, my tears, were all planned for and designed by my Maker for His special reasons and purposes for my ultimate good and His awesome glory.

"Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them." Psalm 139:16

You are not alone in your grief, dear Lily, and your tears do not go unnoticed by Your Father in Heaven. Pain and grief are not foreign to Him, for while on earth, Christ experienced pain, grief, and sorrow; He wept over the death of his friend Lazaras, and He suffered many trials. There is not a thing that we will ever encounter on this earth that He has not encountered before us.

One of my favorite verses that always comforts me when I can't stop the tears from flowing is Psalm 56:8 which says,

"You number my wanderings;
Put my tears into Your bottle;
Are they not in Your book?"

Tears will come. Grief will hit. Hearts will ache. Regrets will surface. But God is good. When we have our hope set in His Word and works, all the pain and all the mistakes will seem a little more organized and just a part of His perfect plan for us. Don't give up, dear Lily, this isn't the end; you are loved by Your Father in Heaven and He sees your aching heart and your tears. Reach out to Him, and take heart in His power.

With much love and prayer,

~Jaycee <3

𝐿𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝐿𝒾𝓁𝒾𝑒𝓈

Ⓒ 2026 by Like Lilies

All scripture quotations are taken from the NKJV Bible translation, unless otherwise stated.

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