What Isaiah 54 is teaching me about being storm-tossed and not comforted

Grief is here.
But so is freedom.

And I’m learning what it means to live in the tension of both.

Wounds I thought were healed have been picked at recently. Not fully undone… but exposed enough to remind me they’re still there.

I am aware that healing transitions can feel like exile before they feel like promise. That isolation is not proof of permanent loneliness.

But what feels most present right now… is the lack of touch.

I didn’t have much of it growing up. And when I did, it wasn’t always safe.

Fast forward to marriage and motherhood… I was constantly touched. Holding babies. Nursing. Little hands always reaching.

Now? I live in a house full of teens.

Hugs are rare.

And honestly, I get it. I’m not even mad about it.

But it has revealed something I didn’t expect:

I don’t despise touch. I need it. I welcome it.

Just… not from anybody. Not without safety.

Touch heals.

I’ve seen it.

My mom was once paralyzed on her left side as an infant. Through consistent care and repeated massage over time, feeling was restored.

Her dominant side now? Her left.

Touch restored what had gone unresponsive.

And here I am realizing I don’t just want touch—I need safe touch.

Because adult hugs, the kind that last longer than a few seconds, the kind that ground you… are rare.

And I didn’t realize how much I needed them until I started noticing how absent they’ve been.

I’ve learned something else too:

I love physical touch and quality time… but I need emotional safety first.

When I don’t feel grounded, when I don’t feel secure, I pull back.

Not because I don’t care. Not because I’m rejecting people.

But because I am protecting myself.

And if I’m honest?

I am tired of surviving.

For a while now, it has felt like there isn’t consistent grounding available when everything starts spiraling.

So I retreat. I go quiet. I isolate.

I’m trying not to… but it’s easier said than done.

This season feels like exile. Like purgatory. Like I owe somebody penance.

And I know that’s not truth.

I know I wasn’t replaced. I was repositioned.

But the sting is still there.

And then there’s motherhood inside all of this.

Watching my girls feel the weight of inconsistency… of disengagement… of being told:

“Ask your mother.”
“Your mother got it.”
“Your mother will handle it.”

Mother.

So formal. So distant. So impersonal.

Because truthfully?

“Mother” doesn’t have it.

She is heavily dependent on God.

And while I understand the sentiment… it doesn’t feel like support. It feels like deflection.

What would actually help… is help.

The exhaustion is layered.

Emotionally grieving. Physically drained. Mentally stretched. Financially strained.

Trauma stacking in real time.

My nervous system stays flipping into survival mode, not because I’m dramatic, but because this is what it has learned.

And I hate even giving voice to all of this.

But silence has me feeling like I’m drowning.

And when people ask, “How are you?” I want to scream.

Because that question is often asked without intention to actually hold the answer.

Who really wants to hear that starting over has been one of the most debilitating stressors of my life?

That every day feels like holding your breath… because how the wind blows determines how your children process their grief?

This season has been lonely.

Humiliating.

Rebuilding publicly comes with this unspoken expectation to hold it all together. To be strong. To be composed. To be palatable.

To even celebrate the very ones who violated you, because if you don’t?

“You’ll mess up the kids.”

And if I’m honest?

That expectation feels violating in itself.

There are moments where this all feels eerily familiar.

Like being blamed for things that were done to me.

Like being told I was too much. Or not enough. Or should have done it differently.

And it echoes.

Loud.

And then… there’s my mother.

A silence that stretches across years. Occasional surface-level messages. No real engagement. No real care.

And recently, seeing her publicly affirm something that directly hurt me?

It didn’t just sting.

It reopened something deeper:

Not being chosen.
Not being protected.
Not being believed.

And it forced me to sit with a question I didn’t want to answer:

If I don’t have my mother… who do I have to physically comfort me in a way that is safe?

I almost convinced myself to go see her.

Not because anything had changed.

But because some part of me still wanted a mom. Still wanted a hug. Still wanted somewhere to rest.

But wanting something doesn’t make it safe.

And I’m learning not to confuse the two.

So I’ve been asking myself:

Do I have unhealed loneliness?

Does it make me reach for affirmation or affection in the wrong places or for the wrong reasons?

Is it peace I want… or control?

Am I addicted to approval… or surrendered to obedience?

And in the middle of all of that…

I hear myself asking:

Lord… where are You?

I know Your silence doesn’t mean absence. I know not feeling You doesn’t mean You’re not near.

But still…

Where are You?

And somewhere in the middle of all of this… I was led to Isaiah 54.

Not as a quick answer. Not as emotional relief. But as truth that can hold weight.

Isaiah 54 doesn’t begin with correction. It begins with naming.

Barren.
Deserted.
Grieved in spirit.
Storm-tossed.
Not comforted.

It doesn’t rush past what hurts, it acknowledges it first.

And something in me exhales at that.

Because I have felt those words in real time.

Isaiah 54 calls that reality what it is, without shame.

And then it shifts.

Not by denying the pain… but by refusing to let it be permanent identity.

“Enlarge the place of your tent…”

Expansion before visibility. Capacity before comfort.

That part confronts me.

Because I’ve wanted relief before the stretch. Resolution before rebuilding. Safety before expansion.

But sometimes God starts with capacity.

Not because He is distant, but because what is coming requires more room in me than what broke me did.

Then He says:

“Fear not, for you will not be ashamed…”

Not because shame never happened, but because shame does not get the final word.

Not what was done to me. Not what was said about me. Not what I was left to carry alone.

And then the anchor:

“For your Maker is your husband…”

Covering. Defender. Stable presence.

Not replacing people, but restoring what people were never able to consistently be.

And then:

“Though the mountains be shaken… My covenant of peace will not be removed.”

Everything in my life has not felt stable. But that does not mean I am not held.

So I come back to what I know now.

Grief is here.
But so is freedom.

And I’m no longer waiting for one to leave before I live.

Grief is real.
It has weight.
It has a voice.

But it is not in charge.

Freedom is here too.
Quieter some days… but steadier.

And I’m learning I don’t have to wait until everything feels healed
to begin living like I am already held.

I am still storm-tossed.
Still not fully comforted.

But I am not abandoned.
I am not forgotten.
I am not outside of God’s reach.

So even here…
in the tension, in the rebuilding, in the becoming…

I choose to live.

Not later.
Not when everything feels better.

Now.

Because grief may be present…

But freedom is too.