I was a foreign exchange student in my senior year of high school. A student from Chile came to the

USA and I went to their country. I lived with a host family for a year and then I returned to the

state just a few months before graduation. So I graduated twice, once in Chile and once in Hopkins,

Minnesota. My first few months as a foreign exchange student

were hard. I felt like a person that didn't fit in anywhere. There were some days when I was just

lonely and I wanted my old familiar life back. Grief is like that.

Welcome to Keep the Heart podcast with Francie Taylor.

Francie is an author, teacher, and conference speaker known for sharing biblical insights

that are practical and inspiring.

Now back to today's valuable study.

You know, when I described that loneliness that I felt, I really did deeply desire to have

my old familiar life back. I wanted to go home. But this was before the internet, before cell phones,

and before you could change an airline ticket with a point and a click. Now eventually, I settled in to

Chile and things were more familiar to me. What felt hard and edgy at first, softened over time.

That happens with grief, too. Grief is like going to bed

in a familiar place and waking up in a foreign country where you don't speak the language and you just

want to go home. You want your old life back. But the hard edginess is softened by God over time.

We can't expect to point and click and make life go back to how it was before our loved ones passed away. It doesn't work like that.

The foreign land of grief is so unfamiliar. It can even make us feel hopeless at times.

But there is hope beyond grief. No matter who it is who passes from our lives,

a husband, a child, a parent, a sibling, a close friend, we may go through a season of feeling

lost and out of place, but just as seasons change, this too shall pass. Let's study four reasons

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