Lamentations

It was 11 p.m., the house was quiet, and I was sitting in the dark at my desk, trying to see through tears I couldn’t quite stop.

Everyone else was asleep, but I knew I had a responsibility waiting for me in the morning. I was supposed to lead a devo for our team, a team that had just received news of a tragic loss in our community. The kind of loss that doesn’t just stay “out there,” but settles deep into your chest and touches something personal in each of us.

I sat there holding all of it, the sadness, the grief, the weight of what we were feeling, and wondering how to even begin. And in that quiet, heavy moment, I found myself turning to something ancient, yet exactly what I needed.

In the book of Lamentations, I discovered something unexpectedly powerful. There are moments in life when everything feels heavy, and no one quite knows what to say. Maybe you’ve had one of those days. Or maybe you’re in a season that feels like it’s stretching longer than you expected. And single moms, get really good at holding it all together. We show up. We push through. We keep going for our kids, for our responsibilities, for the life we are building.

But somewhere along the way, many of us learn to quiet what we’re actually feeling. We tell ourselves, I don’t have time to fall apart. I need to stay strong. I will deal with this later. But what if strength is not found in pushing feelings down? What if it’s found in allowing them to surface?

In Lamentations, grief is not rushed or hidden. It is expressed honestly, openly, and with others. In that time, people did not grieve alone. In fact, they sometimes had what were called hired mourners, people who would come alongside them and help express their grief out loud. Not because the pain was not real, but because it mattered enough for it to be seen, felt, and shared.

There’s something deeply meaningful in that. They gave each other permission to feel. And maybe that’s something we need more of. Permission to feel the sadness you have been carrying. Permission to feel the anger, the exhaustion, the loneliness. Permission to feel joy too, even if it shows up in the middle of a hard season. You do not have to filter your emotions to be okay. You do not have to rush past what hurts to prove you are strong. What you are feeling is not a problem to fix. It is something to acknowledge.

So let me say this to you, here at Arise, we believe that kind of space matters. We believe in creating environments where single moms do not have to pretend. Where you can show up exactly as you are, whether that is hopeful, overwhelmed, grieving, or somewhere in between, and know you are not alone. Because the truth is, healing does not happen when we ignore what we feel. It begins when we are honest about it. So consider this your permission. To feel what you are feeling. To not have it all figured out. To take a breath and be human in the middle of it all.

And if what you need is not just a quiet moment, but a place to feel, process, and be surrounded by women who understand, we would love for you to join us at Thrive this summer.

It’s more than a gathering. It’s a space. A space to laugh, to cry, to connect, and to be reminded that you do not have to carry this alone. Because sometimes, the most powerful thing we can offer each other is simply the permission to feel.

-Mel Hiett