Navigating Loss, Grief and the Unexpected Storms of Life

“We say we want to be like Jesus, but do we want to go through trials and tribulations?”

Jun 25, 2025

Grief doesn’t always look like losing someone. Sometimes, it’s the ache of a dream that never came to life, a future that didn’t unfold as you’d hoped, or a relationship that was taken away.

Below is a snippet of a conversation with Jan Johnson, a 72-year-old woman who has endured many adversities – from miscarriage and widowhood to estranged children, abandonment, rape and cancer. More recently, she has experienced the loss of a relationship with a grandchild who was kidnapped by her own father.

Jan shares how she’s learned to trust God through it all by grounding herself in His Word, reflecting on His past faithfulness, and maintaining an eternal perspective. If you prefer listening, you can listen to or watch the full conversation on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.

You have experienced a lot of grief – from miscarriage and widowhood to estranged children, abandonment, rape and cancer. More recently, you’ve experienced losing a relationship with a grandchild who was kidnapped by her own father. How has the Lord carried you through?

Well, you know the song “Way Maker”? That's it. Even though you don't see He’s working, you’ve just got to trust that He’s working behind the scenes.

And so even at the end of all of the court dates and everything that happened, the other grandma got custody of her. She's so brainwashed now that she still doesn't want to see us. She could, but she's so brainwashed that she doesn't want to see us.

So, I still have to just keep trusting. I have to believe God is who He is and He’s got a bigger plan than what I can see. I mean, it's like, why did you take my daughter's only child? But in my heart of hearts, I really think that God's writing her testimony and at some point she's going to be able to come back and use that.

Of all the griefs I've had, that's been the hardest because it's ongoing. And I felt helpless. I mean, I'm like, how can I fix this? What can I do? But the real grief in there is just the hopes that you had in the relationship, it's that loss of what you think should have happened.

What words of encouragement do you have for people struggling with grief?

Start with the Psalms. Look at David, when he takes Bathsheba and they have a son and the son's going to die. First, there's that anticipatory grief that you know it's going to happen. It was the same with my first husband, Howard, with his brain tumor. I knew eventually he was going to die. So you were grieving ahead of time.

But, God takes you through deep waters. He's right there and you have to just keep in the Word because if you don’t you just get lost and it sucks you down.

Because what's the Bible? It's just all these people who have gone through all these things already. There’s nothing new under the sun and they've all gone through it.

And it's okay to grieve. Look at Lamentations. It's like how long, oh Lord, and when is this going to end or what is going to happen? And if He doesn't answer in the here and now, He still has a big picture of how it's going to work, whether we understand it or not. And that's where your trust comes in.

What are some other things that have helped ground you?

I think journaling is really good. Even if you're just writing out your prayers to God, like this is where I'm at, and how come, and what is going on here. And friends, I mean, you have to have relationships. You have to have people there with you and you need to let them in.

When Howard [my first husband] died, somebody offered to bring a meal or something and I just said, ‘We’re good.’ Except that then they said, ‘You're robbing us of a blessing if you don't allow us to share in your grief.’ That always stuck with me.

[But it takes humility and vulnerability] because you don't want to feel pitied. But it's just like, once you do, you realize that that's something you're giving to someone else — their giving is you giving.

So having strong people that are in your life that are faithful because they're going to speak scripture and truth to you, or just be there to sit with you and listen.

What’s the most important lesson the Lord has taught you over the years?

Really, I have learned to trust Him, which is just a hard thing to do. But you only learn that through going through hard things. If you don't go through hard things, you don't need to trust Him.

So I think it just goes back to trust really. It’s just knowing He is saying, ‘I love you. I'm going to take care of you. I know what's going on. I know you can't see it.’

It just seems like a simple word. But you know what, when you look in the Old Testament, they're traveling across the wilderness and they set up an altar so they can remember. And then something happens. We set up an altar so we can remember.

And so we need to go back and write down those things and say, this is where God was in my life. And this is where He came through in my life. This is where He hasn't come through yet – but He will.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I would tell my younger self to dig into the Word. To really get to know who God is, what His character is, what He’s done. Surround yourself with others who are passionate about God.

And how about trusting Him? When things don’t go as planned or there’s a divine detour that you can’t see the end of the road, know that the God who created really does see the beginning from the end. He knows the big picture.

And, you know, we say we want to be like Jesus, but do we want to go through trials and tribulations? But we go through the trials and tribulations because that's where we come closest to Him.

But even with that, just to go deeper, we should thank Him for that because He's giving us an opportunity to get closer to Him. And He’s building my testimony to share with somebody else that might be going through it.

Listen to or watch the full conversation on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.

Thank you for being here,

Katharine

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