Ask the Blog Team: I Find Myself Almost Obsessively Reading Other Peoples’ Stories of Loss. Is This Healthy

Welcome to our Q+A series, Ask the Blog Team. In this series, the Hope Mommies blog team joins together to answer questions that are commonly asked in grief. If there is a question or topic that you have wrestled with in your grief that you would like the opportunity to see how other Hope Moms have processed or answered, we would love to hear from you. You can submit your questions here.

I find myself almost obsessively reading other peoples’ stories of loss. Is this healthy?

I loved connecting with others online about loss. I’ve even made some long-distance friends this way due to my unique situation. I will say, I wish I would have taken a break directly after loss from the research instead of jumping right in. I wasn’t ready for all of what I learned.  The level of healthiness has to be determined by you and those close to you. Is it a way of finding comfort for future pregnancies instead of trusting the Lord? Is it a way of finding out answers of ‘why’ that should be left to the Lord? Is it taking up an excessive amount of time? Is it drawing you away from the actual support system in your immediate life? If the answers to those questions are yes, it probably isn’t healthy.  But if you find yourself using it as a way of taking steps forward in healing, for recommendations and advice on how other Chrisitian women worked through loss? I think it can be a very healthy outlet for wisdom, connection, and advice. 

While I don’t think it is healthy to obsessively read other peoples’ stories of loss, I do think they can be beneficial in moderation. I did the same thing. I learned a lot about the character of God through other people’s testimonies. I read a ton of them in the beginning, and I eventually stopped as time went on. The grief was so fresh in the beginning that I wanted to learn from people who understood my pain. I guess I would say that if they cause you to worship the Lord then read them. If they make you angry, make you discontent, or make you sin, it is time for a break. 

I think hearing stories from others that resonate with our own is a way of coping, healing, and finding we are not alone. More than any devotional, wise words, or sermons, the things that spoke to me the most after my losses and made me feel seen were the stories from others that echoed the brokenness in my own heart.

It made me feel a little less crazy to hear others say “me too.” One of my favorite books is C.S. Lewis’s On Grief. In this short book, you find Lewis, a great theologian, pouring out the messiness of his grief onto the pages. This book is not about self help or how to feel better or even how God is going to make everything right in the end. It is simply a man lamenting the loss of his love in incredibly raw and honest terms.

This book showed me that it was ok to grieve and grieve hard and that I was not the only one who had been in this pit of despair. Somehow the camaraderie of this book meant more to me in the depths of grief than any other book attempting to telling me how to get out of the depths. This is also a reason I am extremely grateful for Hope Mommies and the Hope Mommies blog, it made me feel less alone in a lonely place in my life.

There is something about grief that makes us feel so isolated. It’s easy to fall into believing the lie that there is no one who can understand what you are going through. Reading the stories of others who have walked this road of grieving the loss of a child can provide such comfort in knowing that you are not alone.

God can also use the testimonies of others to encourage and challenge us in our faith. When we read stories of other women who have lost a precious baby, and yet clung to the Lord and allowed their sorrow to magnify the His name, it can stir our hearts to long for and pursue the same outcome.

However, the testimonies of others cannot replace the comfort of God’s presence and His Word. Be mindful of where you are turning for your ultimate hope and healing. Stories of other women who have endured infant loss can be comforting and encouraging, but God alone can heal our hearts. Our hope must be anchored in Christ and not simply in solidarity and reliability with others.