000 - Introduction

IIntroduction to Walking Through: Open Letters of a Christian's Walk Through Grief

These blog entries were written during the year after my father passed away—early in the morning on a cold winter day, December 3rd, 2003. Even now, I miss him more than words can express.

Though written in 2004 and 2005, I’m sharing them here with minimal editing. My hope is simple and, I think, necessary. I want to help those who are grieving right now. Grief is hard. It’s relentless, exhausting work. To go back and “clean up” the writing now would feel like photoshopping a picture of a war zone—something that may not be dishonest, but it certainly wouldn’t be true. Grief deserves the truth. So do the people walking through it.

Before we go further, let me give you a glimpse of the man I lost. My father was strong and tender, both at once. He showed me what it means to be a father, how to love a wife, and how to keep going when life falls apart. He wasn’t perfect—he’d be the first to tell you that. But he loved me well, even during the years I didn’t make it easy. I said and did things no father should have to hear or see. For that, I am deeply sorry—and equally grateful that God’s grace flowed through him in the form of forgiveness. His life, strengths and flaws alike, kept me grounded. In the years before he passed, our relationship had become something warm and good. We had our disagreements, like any father and son, but what remained between us was friendship.

These blog posts started as private journal entries—ways for me to make sense of the emotions, questions, and confusion that grief brought crashing in. I never intended to share them. But over time, as the entries started to form something coherent, I let a few close friends read them. Eventually, they were passed around to more people. Now, I’m offering them to anyone who might find hope in them.

It may help you, the reader, to know a few things about me before going any further. I’m a Christian, and I write from that perspective. You may not share that worldview, and that’s okay. But it helps to know where I’m coming from, and it may give some context to the things I write.

If you’re grieving right now—if you're searching for comfort, for a way to breathe through the pain—I want you to hear this: there is hope. It may not feel like it, but the sorrow you’re in will pass. Like every storm, it ends. I survived the long night after my dad died, and it was only by the power of God that I did. And not just survived—I eventually began to flourish.

So this is for you—the one walking through.

You're not alone.