There’s no escaping the grief, it seems.
Yet, it’s the things we leave unsaid that we battle the most. For so many Black women, grief is the unspoken thing—the invisible pain.
But as the saying goes, “Thank God we don’t look like what we’ve been through.” Can I get an amen?
So yes, being strong is a beautiful thing, but it can also be isolating. What is it about appearing strong that makes us feel so empowered? We often hear things like, “Nothing fazes her,” “She never cries,” “She’s not afraid of anything,” “Life never gets her down.”
I think about my mom and her losses: her miscarriage, and the losses of her dad, two adult children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, her husband, and several siblings. I think about how she’s dealt with them all. On the outside looking in, I admit I’ve said countless times, “She’s the strongest woman I know.”
I’ve seen my mom cry at funerals, and I’ve heard her crying in the wee hours of the night while praying. I’ve done the same: tucked the grief away neatly to not make a scene in front of others—even my family. With the immensity of loss experienced, someone on the outside looking in would say, “You’re so strong.” But we carry these “strong Black woman” labels because no one sees what happens when the mask is lowered in the shower or on the bathroom floor, when we can’t see through the tears streaming down our faces. But I understand the importance of letting my kids see me cry. I need to let them know how important it is to process and express emotion. We don’t have to hide behind masks because it’s not healthy.
In Black religious culture, talking about our struggles openly is often seen as a sign of weakness, disbelief, or lack of faith. So we put up a front to appear strong. We throw around platitudes when asked “How are you doing?” We know the correct response is, “I’m blessed and highly favored.” All the while, we are broken deep down and don’t know how we’re going to recover. We’re stuck in “fake it until you make it” mode. This also keeps us hesitant to seek professional help and instead leads us to push our emotions to the side, to disregard how we feel, and to deal with it alone.
To maintain the façade that we are strong, we may avoid things that keep us from grieving or outwardly expressing our grief. I avoided the collection of documents and pictures of my son I placed into adoptive care over twenty years ago. Spring of 2024, I pulled them down from the attic, gathering pictures and items for a grief art class series I participated in for birth moms. And just as I expected, fresh grief ensued. This is why we avoid things that trigger grief. What have you avoided for the sake of appearing strong?
God’s take on being strong is different from ours and the world’s because God’s strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). We find our hope and strength in God. The apostle Paul wrote, “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain” (Hebrews 6:19). Paul also wrote, “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).
Simply put, we were not made to be strong. And we were never made to do everything for everybody or be available to everybody at all times. That is God’s job. When we think of our very creation, we were made from the rib of Adam, who was made from dust. It is written, “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).
Dust is defined as “fine, dry powder consisting of tiny particles of earth or waste matter lying on the ground or surfaces or carried in the air.” Have you ever wondered why God chose dust to form us? Why not stone or wood or iron? I believe this demonstrates how we were never made to be strong without him, “for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). If we can acknowledge our true weaknesses and our need for Jesus, why do we struggle to rely on him when he is the most reliable One? Sometimes it’s because we encounter people who let us down, so we have no choice but to act strong. Sometimes we experience something we are utterly unprepared for, such as the loss of a parent as a child.
You may have heard the saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” This adage from the nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is generally used as an affirmation of resilience. But in the experience of Black women, what doesn’t kill us gives us trauma. We are left with things we have to work out and work through. Left unresolved, these things can push us to project our trauma onto others. These aftereffects may negatively impact our loved ones, coworkers, and colaborers for the kingdom, and may even ripple beyond the present to future generations.
Let’s stop right here. This is your time to just be.
This is your time to peel off layers and layers of the masks you wear, to be who you are in Christ—his daughter, leaning and depending on him, looking to the hills where your help comes from, and knowing your help comes from the Lord (Psalm 121:1-2). Our confidence and strength lie in the One who lives in us. When we are strong in our own strength, we have the potential to break. Our mental, spiritual, and physical health suffers. We draw from a finite well of our self-sufficiency instead of the infinite well of living water Jesus wants to provide for us.
The ability to endure grief and suffering seemingly on our own is perceived as a gift by others, but it feels like a curse. I heard this illustration of grief: if we get into a bad traffic accident and have to be in a full body cast as a result, others will recognize the physical pain we are in. But when we have no external indicators of the internal suffering, pain, and grief we are carrying, it appears we are fine.
People see us and wonder, “I don’t know how you’re still smiling despite what you’ve been through.”
And we say, “It’s because of God.”
Adapted from Black Woman Grief by Natasha Smith. ©2025 by Natasha Smith. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.
