Finding Peace in the Waiting: Navigating Grief During Advent

Peace and grief during Advent

December carries a weight unlike any other when you’re grieving—especially when that grief follows a loss that was sudden, traumatic, or shadowed by mental illness. Advent arrives with its gentle promises of hope, peace, joy, and love… yet those promises can feel distant, almost out of reach. And peace? Peace can feel impossibly far away.

Yet the peace we long for in grief is not simple—it is different, more profound, and hard-won. It doesn’t erase the past or the pain; instead, it slowly reshapes how we carry it. And if there’s anything people grieving traumatic loss need, it’s a peace that can survive the truth.

How Depression Steals Peace

Long before grief entered my life so violently, mental health had already been quietly stealing Kevin’s peace. It crept in slowly, silently, in ways most people never noticed. Depression is not simply sadness. It is a neurological, emotional, and spiritual erosion of a person’s sense of self and safety.

Research shows depression affects the brain’s ability to regulate emotions, diminishes joy and motivation, distorts self-worth, and creates an emotional pain so intense it can feel physical. It isn’t an emotional dip. It’s an internal war.

And the world often misunderstands this: a person can be surrounded by love and still feel no peace internally.

Kevin was deeply loved, had many reasons to stay, and cared deeply about others. Yet his compromised mental health robbed him of the inner peace and stability he deserved. The world around him wasn’t violent, but inside, there was a storm. Kevin’s experience was a vivid example of this invisible struggle—one that no amount of love or safety in the world could fully heal.

This brings us to the first truth of peace: peace is not simply the absence of external conflict.

Peace Is Not the Absence of Violence

For decades, peace researchers have pushed back against our cultural misunderstanding of peace. Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, the father of modern peace studies, says what most people call peace—simply no fighting—is actually “negative peace.” It is fragile. It is temporary. It is easily shattered.

“Positive peace,” however, requires conditions that allow a person to flourish in meaningful ways: justice, dignity, emotional safety, equity, connection, mental health, community support, and belonging.

Nelson Mandela said, “Peace is not just the absence of conflict; it is the creation of conditions where all can flourish.”Dr. King added, “True peace is the presence of justice.”The Dalai Lama taught that peace is rooted in humanity and dialogue.

When someone struggles with depression or overwhelming mental illness, peace is often the very thing they cannot feel—no matter how much they desire it. Kevin once told me that his mind couldn’t calm down enough even to sleep. That is the absence of peace.

And in cases of traumatic loss, when someone says, “At least the chaos is over now,” they overlook something vital: calm is not the same as peace.

Trauma researchers describe something called “functional freeze”—the body appears calm, but the internal world is still flooded with pain. It looks calm to the outside world, but inside, the heart and mind are still in turmoil. The nervous system is quiet only because it is overwhelmed, not because it has healed.

According to traumatic bereavement research, peace returns through a slow process of rebuilding: understanding how the loss reshapes identity, reconnecting with others, integrating grief without being overwhelmed, confronting the truth without sugarcoating it, remaining connected to the person you lost, and rediscovering your own strengths. These are the early signs of positive peace returning.

Peace after traumatic loss is not the peace you once knew. It doesn’t deny the wound; it grows around it. It is a new kind of peace, shaped by grief, faith, and love—a peace that carries both the ache and the memory of what was lost. It’s the peace that lets me breathe a little easier today, speak Kevin’s name without collapsing, and trust that while the pain will always live with me, so will the love.

Advent Peace: A Promise, Not a Shortcut

This understanding of peace naturally connects to Advent. Advent is a season built on waiting for something the world could never create on its own—the arrival of Christ, the Prince of Peace. His peace did not arrive wrapped in comfort or perfection. It came to a world full of oppression, fear, uncertainty, and longing. It came in a humble manger to people desperate for hope.

Mary, Jesus’ earthly mother, experienced a deep inner peace despite the lack of lodging, the discomfort, and the uncertainty—a peace born not from her circumstances but from the presence of the infant Jesus and the assurance of God’s plan. Mary shows us that even in the uncertainty and discomfort, God’s will can bring quiet miracles and a peace that goes beyond circumstance. Advent peace is a becoming, not a finished state, and honors the waiting, the longing, the dark, and lonely night before the dawn.

Christ’s birth did not erase hardship. It offered a new way of living in peace: a peace that does not depend on circumstances or outward calm, but sits with the brokenhearted, sees trauma, and does not shrink back, and whispers, “You’re not alone in this story.”

When I couldn’t find Kevin during his first suicide attempt, the following verse came to me like a lifeline—not a promise that nothing painful would happen, but a promise that God would be with me in the fear:

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are stayed on You.” — Isaiah 26:3

And now, in his death, I allow this same verse to soak into the cracks of my broken heart. It does not erase grief, but it holds me inside it. It reminds me that God’s peace is not fragile, even when I am.

The war inside Kevin—the depression that fought him for more than twelve long years—robbed him of peace long before his death. There was no external violence in his environment. The violence was internal: neurological, emotional, spiritual. Naming this is not weakness or shame; it is truth. And truth is the foundation of peace.

My grief work, writing, advocacy, honesty, and faith are all acts of positive peace, built on compassion, dignity, justice, and love.

Kevin’s life is more than a loss. It is a witness: a reminder that mental health is essential to peace, that peace grows through connection and presence, that unseen storms deserve visibility, empathy, and care.

And your story, or anyone grieving a traumatic loss, is a reminder that peace is possible. Not quickly. Not cleanly. Not perfectly. But slowly, in the same way Advent unfolds. Peace didn’t fall into my lap after losing Kevin. I didn’t force a “new normal.” My peace has been shaped slowly through faith, surrender, and grace.

Peace in Advent

Hope is the first candle of Advent. Peace is the second, not because everything is calm, but because peace is what we seek while the world remains unfinished.

Advent peace does not skip over grief. It doesn’t require closure. It doesn’t push healing faster. It respects the waiting. It moves softly into the pain and whispers:

Peace is possible here. Peace is possible alongside grief. Peace is possible, slowly, in the waiting and in the letting go. Not instead of your grief but alongside it. Not because the world is whole, but because you are learning to be whole again in a different way.

In this season of waiting, I am learning that peace, like Advent, arrives in its own time—quietly, softly, and exactly where it is needed most.

Pause, reflect, and find one small way today to nurture peace in your heart—through prayer, journaling, or connecting with someone who understands—your peace matters.