Discussions in Grief: Numbness

Grieving involves new emotions and considerations often too many to numbers. When you find yourself in overwhelming grief, you likely feel buried and lost. In this series, we slowly and compassionately look at one aspect of grief at a time from a biblical perspective for the newly grieving mother. Click {here} to read past posts in this series. 

I slowly climbed into the wheelchair ready to be escorted out. The nurse pushed me out of room 307 and down the hall of the labor and delivery unit. Nurses stopped and squeezed my neck and said their goodbyes. Strangers, there I assume to meet their newest family member, gave looks of sympathy. They knew. They knew a woman being wheeled down the hall of labor and deliver, her husband following her, with no infant car seat, no infant, no diaper bag, was indeed a sign of heartbreak.

My husband pulls the car around, and Nurse Paula helps me out of the wheelchair. She hugs me and cries and assures us that she will be in prayer for our strength and healing. I am so grateful for the prayers, for I know I will need them. And just like that, it’s over. I watch the other cars on our drive home, and am astounded that the rest of the world is simply moving as normal. People are smiling, and laughing, and living their life, and how in the world am I supposed to do that? My son is gone. My baby boy was in my womb and now he is not and, goodness, it would be nice if God could just freeze time, and just stop the hustle and bustle of life until I am on the other side of this grief journey I must now face.

I never knew soul-sucking grief until I lost my son, Chance. Chance was stillborn at 20 weeks gestation. Two weeks prior to his birth, his heartbeat was in the 150’s and then, two weeks later, it just stopped. One day he was with me. The next day he was gone. The trauma of birthing a son, and then leaving the hospital empty handed without my boy, was something I was not prepared for. I was not prepared for the toll grief would take, and I can now say that grief is a very real and very strange phenomenon.

Grief will come and go in epic waves, with many possible side effects—deep sadness, a depression-like state, anxiety, inability to make even the simplest of decisions, loneliness and the urge to isolate, inability to focus properly, preoccupation with death and dying, vivid dreams, insomnia. The five stages of grief are a real thing. Yet you won’t necessarily work through them in a set order; I didn’t, anyway. Of all of grief’s side effects, there was one that seemed to puzzle me the most.

Numbness.

There were several instances in my grief where I felt numb to the world. Void of emotion. No sadness, no anger, no happiness, nothing. This feeling of emotionlessness hit me as we drove home from the hospital that day, and again the following day, when we walked the cemetery to pick out a resting spot for our son.

These were the first times I felt a sense of numbness, but they were not the last.

Emotional numbness can create a sense of isolation. You might feel empty, unable to feel, receive, or give. You just exist, waiting for the feeling to return. Numbness makes it hard to communicate with others or think deeply; numbness blocks one from processing their loss or trauma. Numbness can impede on the relationships with living family members and friends.

For a while I believed the numbness was working to my advantage. If I couldn’t feel, I could protect my heart from processing the loss of my son, and also from getting hurt again. In my eyes, not feeling equaled self protection.

Yet, God spoke to me so gently during this time. I heard Him say, “Chance’s heart stopped beating. Don’t let yours stop, too.”

With that, I began the work to bring my heart back to life. To feel. To let His truth guide me to hope. Have you been there? In this spot that I describe where your trauma has caused a sense of numbness? Where you feel nothing in an effort to avoid feeling the hurt and pain of your loss?

If this is you, sweet sister, may I encourage you with the encouragement the Lord gave me? Below is a listing of Scripture that helped bring my heart back to life, back to feeling, and back to hope. I encourage you to write them out and meditate on each one. The Word of God is living and active, and one of our strongest weapons against struggle, defeat, and emptiness.

Encouragement for when you feel numb in your grief:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.”
Psalm 81:10:

“For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2 Corinthians 12:10

“O God, You are my God; earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.“
Psalm 63:1

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me”
Psalm 51:10

“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever.”
Psalm 73:26

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:7

Ladies, God is in the business of revival, and He longs to bring your heart back to life, as He did mine. Our God is loving, and trustworthy, and faithful. You can trust Him with your pain.

When you feel weak, His strength sustains. When your heart feels empty, He renews the spirit. Our hearts are brought back to life and sustained with His living water. In your numbness reach out to Him, meditate on His promises, and He will, in time, renew your spirit and satisfy the empty spaces of your soul.

Jesus, thank you for the truth of Scripture. Thank you for the promise to meet us in our grief and fill our hearts when we feel nothing. There are days when we feel numb to the world. We give those days to you, Lord. We trust you with our emotion and lack thereof. We praise you in advance for holding us close, reviving our hearts, and redeeming our pain.

Brittnie lives in Sugar Land, Texas and enjoys writing on her blog and other outlets, baking, lingering coffee dates, and soaking in moments with her family. She is a wife to Brandon and a mom to Clara, Camille, and Hope Mom to Baby A (Clara’s twin) and Chance. Psalm 62:1-2 is her go to verse when she needs quick encouragement. She is author of Desert Song, and you can visit with Brittnie at her personal blog, A Joy Renewed, where she shares her faith and family, and encourages her readers to claim joy despite circumstance.

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