Should I Be Over This By Now? What Faith Says About Grief and Time

At some point, almost everyone who is grieving asks the same quiet question:
“Should I be over this by now?”
It might come a few weeks after a loss, when the meals stop arriving and the messages slow down.
Or months later, when the world has moved on—but your heart hasn’t.
Sometimes it comes years later, unexpectedly, when a memory surfaces and the ache feels just as sharp.
There is often a hidden fear beneath the question: Is something wrong with me?
The truth is simple, although not always easy to accept:
No.
There is nothing wrong with you.
Grief does not follow a schedule. It does not move neatly from beginning to end. It is not something we “complete” as if it were a task.
In a world that values efficiency and closure, grief feels out of place. It lingers. It returns. It interrupts. And because of that, it can make us feel as though we are failing at something we were never meant to control.
But our faith offers a very different understanding.
In the Gospel of John, we are given one of the shortest and most profound verses in Scripture:
“Jesus wept.” (John 11:35)
Jesus knew He would raise Lazarus. He knew death would not have the final word.
And still—He wept.
Not quickly. Not performatively. Not as a step toward “moving on.”
He entered into grief fully, even in the presence of hope.
This matters more than we often realize.
Because it means that grief is not a sign of weak faith.
It is a sign of love.
The depth of our sorrow reflects the depth of our connection. And love—real love—does not simply disappear because someone is no longer physically present.
Over time, grief may change.
It may soften at the edges.
It may become less constant.
But it does not vanish.
And it is not supposed to.
Instead, we learn—slowly, imperfectly—to carry it.
We carry it in the quiet moments.
We carry it in the memories that still make us smile and ache at the same time.
We carry it in the ways we continue to love someone who is no longer here.
And in all of it, God is not waiting for us to “be done.”
He is with us in it.
The Psalms are filled with voices crying out in sorrow, confusion, even anger. They are not rushed. They are not resolved quickly. They are honest.
And they are holy.
So if you find yourself asking, “Should I be over this by now?” consider a different question:
What if I am exactly where I need to be?
What if this grief is not something to eliminate…but something to entrust to God, one day at a time?
Healing does not mean forgetting.
Faith does not require the absence of sorrow.
Sometimes, faith looks like this:
Waking up.
Carrying what is heavy.
And trusting that God is still walking with you—right here, in the middle of it.