Understanding Ambiguous Grief: Healing in the Ashes

Ambiguous grief is the loss that doesn’t make sense. It’s when what’s lost isn’t really gone, but it’s no longer what it was. It’s the ache of ashes of what once was, and unending unanswered questions. It becomes the sorrow without a name, the wound we can’t quite point to, but still feel every day.

The Hidden Pain of Ambiguous Grief

Not all grief is tidy. Some losses can’t be easily defined.
It’s not just the death of a loved one, it’s the loss of what was supposed to be.

That’s the ache of ambiguous grief: when what you’ve lost isn’t gone, but it’s no longer what it was.
It’s the pain of watching a child struggle with addiction.
Or standing in a house that survived a fire, but realizing your sense of safety didn’t.
Maybe it’s the marriage that exists on paper but feels painfully far apart.

Ambiguous grief doesn’t have clear edges.
It lingers in the in-between.
It’s the wound we can’t name.

When our family lost our home to fire, well-meaning people told me,

“You’ll see the good in this, Lea.”

And I understood what they meant, but I couldn’t.
Not while standing barefoot in the ashes, watching everything I owned burn.
Some wounds are too raw for platitudes.

Healing didn’t come through finding the good.
It came through feeling the pain and inviting God into it.

When God Shows Up in the Ashes

Days after our house fire, we met the insurance adjuster at our house. As we slowly walked through the ashes of what was once our home, we rounded the corner into our bathroom. It had been the most destroyed room in the house. Fire had consumed most everything, but on this particular day, I couldn’t believe what I saw: butterflies.

Hundreds of them, landing on the ash and then flying about.

It made no sense.

But as I stood there, surrounded by the ashes of what once was, I felt God whisper:

“Even here, life begins again.”

It was His reminder that resurrection often begins in ruin.
Healing isn’t a rush—it’s a rebirth.

Those butterflies became my picture of emotional healing after loss, a living parable of how beauty can emerge from devastation.

“Do You Want to Be Well?”

There’s a story in John 5 that I can’t shake.

People lay by the Pool of Bethesda, wounded, waiting, longing for healing. They believed healing would come the moment the water stirred, and they stepped in.

Jesus, on his way to Jerusalem, made a detour. He walked right through this area where these wounded and crippled people waited. Jesus knelt beside this particular man who had been waiting thirty-eight years and asked,

“Do you want to be well?”

He didn’t say, “Find the good.”
Didn’t tell him to move on.
He invited him to honesty.

Because before healing comes, we must first admit that we’re hurting.

And that’s where so many of us get stuck.
We’re hovering close to the healing waters. Showing up every Sunday, smiling on the outside while quietly aching within, too afraid to admit we’re still bleeding inside.

But Jesus doesn’t meet us in our pretending.
He meets us in our pain.

Healing Emotional Wounds: The Freedom to Feel

There are three kinds of physical wounds: scrapes, lacerations, and punctures.
Each one heals differently. Some bleed longer. Some leave scars.

The same is true for emotional wounds.
No two stories are alike.
Your grief does not look like mine, and mine does not look like yours.

But all wounds need tending.
All hearts need care.

When pain is left unhealed, it infects the heart.
And hurt people, hurt people.

But when we bring our wounds to Jesus and stop hiding, we start feeling. He begins to cleanse, bind, and restore.

Psalm 147:3 says,

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

He doesn’t hide them.
Or ignore them.
He: Binds them up.

That’s where true healing begins: In the freedom to feel

Finding Hope in the In-Between

If you’re standing in the ashes or living in the ache of ambiguous loss, you are not alone.
Your wound is not too messy for God.
Your emotions are not too much for Him.

He isn’t asking you to move on. He’s asking you to invite Him in.

Because wholeness isn’t found in moving on.
It’s found in letting Jesus move in.

You know, when I think about that man lying by the pool, I imagine the years that passed. Thirty-eight of them weakened his body. Maybe more than that, his hope faded.
And I think of how many of us sit beside our own pools.
We sit near the possibility of healing, but we don’t quite reach for it.

Maybe we’ve learned to get by while broken.
We show up, we smile, we serve.
We say “I’m fine” so often that we almost believe it.

But deep down, something’s still bleeding.
Something’s still aching.
And friend, hear me, God isn’t asking you to slap a smile over that pain.
He’s not disappointed in you.
And he’s not waiting for you to clean yourself up before you come close.

He’s kneeling beside you.
Right where you are.
And He’s whispering the same words He whispered to that man:
“Do you want to be made whole?”