How Do I Stay Grateful After Loss? | Just Nona | Nona Jones

There are some seasons that don't just stretch you — they strip you.

Not all at once, but layer by layer. Things you built. Things you trusted. Things you thought were secure. And suddenly what once felt stable feels uncertain. What once felt full now feels empty. And somewhere in the middle of that grief, a question begins to form: How do I stay grateful when I don't feel grateful? How do I stay hopeful when the future feels uncertain?

In this episode of Just Nona, I'm answering a heart question from a listener named Jennifer, who is navigating material loss and is honestly asking: How do you stay grateful and hopeful about the future in a season of loss?

This is not a conversation about forced positivity. It is a conversation about what gratitude actually looks like when you are genuinely grieving.

We talk about:
Why material loss is never just about things — and what it actually represents when it's gone

The psychological reality of loss and why your whole body processes it, not just your emotions

How loss quietly reshapes identity when you anchor your security in what you had instead of who God is

What Job's response in Job 1:21 and Habakkuk 3:17-18 reveal about gratitude that is rooted in conviction, not circumstance

The difference between gratitude and pretending — and why grief and faith are not opposites

The difference between hope and optimism — and how to hold onto one when you have lost the other

And the question to ask yourself when you cannot figure out how to feel grateful

You are allowed to grieve what you lost without disqualifying your faith. Grief and gratitude can coexist.

You lost something. But you have not lost everything. And God is not finished writing this story.

Order my books at 
https://www.nonajones.com/books 

Connect with me: 
https://www.nonajones.com
https://www.instagram.com/nonanotnora
https://www.facebook.com/NonaNotNora

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of self-harm, please reach out. Call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) — you are not alone, and strength is not suffering in silence.

Listen to Just Nona Podcast
New episodes drop every Monday!
https://nonajones.com/apple
https://nonajones.com/spotify
https://nonajones.com/amazon

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey friend, this is Nelna, and I'm so glad that you're here. Uh this podcast exists to provide a safe space where people can ask the hard questions that they're carrying in their heart and receive biblical wisdom from me, a friend. Uh in order for this podcast to be distributed as far and wide as possible. Ratings and reviews really, really matter. So when you can, please leave a rating and also leave a comment because I love to read your feedback. I hope that you give it five stars, but whatever rating you give it, it really, really matters. So please just take a minute and let me know what you think, okay? I'm so glad you're here. Enjoy the show. There are some seasons in life that don't just stretch you, they strip you. Not all at once, but layer by layer. Things you built, things you trusted, things you thought were secure, and suddenly what once felt stable feels uncertain. What once felt full now feels empty, and what once felt clear now feels unclear. And in those moments, there's a quiet tension that begins to rise in your heart. Because you know what you've been taught, you know to give thanks, you know to trust God, you know to believe He is still good, but if you're honest, you're grieving. You're grieving what you lost, you're grieving what didn't work out, you're grieving what you thought your life would look like by now. And somewhere in the middle of that grief, a question begins to form. How do I stay grateful when I don't feel grateful? How do I stay hopeful when the future feels uncertain? And even deeper, is it wrong that I don't feel okay right now? Today's episode is for those who are navigating loss, not just emotionally, but materially. For those who are trying to reconcile your faith with your reality and those who still believe God is good, but you're trying to understand how to hold on to that goodness when life feels hard. Let's talk about it. Welcome to Just Nona. But we're just afraid to ask. I cannot tell you how many people have either commented or messaged me saying that they have found their way back to hope in Jesus because of the answers provided on this show. Up until now, this show has been entirely funded by me. But God has placed a really big vision in my heart to expand it globally. And I simply can't do it without you. So if you have been blessed by this show, would you consider partnering with me by giving a gift of any amount to help us grow the reach and impact of this ministry? If yes, there's two ways to help. If you're watching on YouTube, just click the donate button, or you can head over to nonajones.com and click the give button at the top of the site. Now, when you go to nonajones.com and give there, you can either give a one-time gift of any amount, or if you really believe in this ministry and want to support in a deeper way, you can become a ministry partner by signing up to give monthly. I would be so, so grateful. May God bless you for your generosity. All right, back to the show. Today's heart question comes to us from a beautiful sister named Jennifer. Jennifer, welcome to the show. What's on your heart?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Hi, Nona. This is Jennifer. I am raised in Brooklyn, but um have come back to New Jersey. So I've been in these two areas for quite some time. So my heart question for you is in a season of loss, in a season of um material loss, how do you stay grateful? How do you stay hopeful and expect good things in the future? Um, and a little bit of context to that is that I have experienced a long, um, extended season of um unemployment for about a year. And I've gained a lot of great experiences, great insight from that as well. Um, God has also provided for me, so it has increased my faith and endurance in certain aspects. Um, but that is really where the heart space comes from. How do I stay grateful in this season where I feel like God is essentially moving me from what I thought I would be doing in corporate work, in umprofit work, and more into entrepreneurship and things of that nature. So that's that's my question for you.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Thank you so much for asking that question and just the gift of your vulnerability. There are many people listening to this and watching this who I think, if they were able to be honest, would say that they're in the same place. One of the challenges I think that we have in in the church in the body of Christ is we tend to feel this like manufactured pressure to deny any human feelings like uh grief, you know, when we go through a loss, whether it's emotionally, relationally, financially, uh we're expected to just trust God and He'll work everything together for your good. And we know that, like intellectually, we know that, but the humanity of us is such that um we we need to be able to grieve the loss. We need to be able to process it. So I thank you for surfacing this because this is a real issue that many people grapple with. Um, and I want to first address that, you know, loss is not just an event. Um, sometimes people think, well, the loss was the layoff, or the loss uh was the bankruptcy, or the loss was the divorce. No, the loss was not necessarily the the event itself, although that is definitely part of it. Um your entire body experiences loss. It absorbs it. And especially when it's when it's a material loss, when it's something that you um that actually structure your life around, that actually you structure your day and your time around, uh, it can be very, very traumatic. And um loss in that case can create a few, a few psychological challenges that I want to just address at the at the outset of this. One, um a material loss, whether it's a relationship, whether it is uh financial status, whatever it may be, it represents um a loss of security, the sense that I uh knew what I was doing. I had a I had a plan and the plan was working. It is a loss of stability. And stability is essentially like what uh hedges you against uncertainty in the future, you know? Um, and I talked in a previous episode about uh what happened to me when I experienced uh the layoff at Meta. And um I'll talk a little bit more about that uh today just because I think it's relevant to this, but um, stability definitely gets gets shaken, as well as identity, you know, it's not just what you lost, it is it is who you thought you were with the thing. You know, if you go through, and I just think of divorce because I've actually walked a number of couples through situations like this. When you go through a divorce, you don't just lose a marriage, you lose your understanding of yourself as a spouse. You lose your understanding of who you are in relation to who your spouse is. That's a real thing. We come to identify ourselves by what we do, who we're with. And when we lose those things, how much money we have, let's just be honest. When we lose those things, we can actually end up losing our sense of self. Um and I think you can also end up with a feeling of a loss of time because you look back on maybe all of the energy that you gave, all the effort that you gave to the thing that you lost, and now you can feel like that was a waste. And so you can end up uh in a situation where you're grieving the time that you lost in addition to the thing uh that you lost. And so I want to be really clear that when you go through a loss, it's not just the thing. You're actually losing what the thing symbolized. When it comes to your employment, Jennifer, you were just talking about going through a season of unexpected unemployment. Well, that job was probably um part of your identity. It was something that you um identified yourself with. When people said, Hey, so tell me about yourself, one of the first things you said was probably what you did or who you worked for. Um, and so that that's real. And then um, loss can create at least four psychological impacts that I want to make sure I address because I just want you to understand that you're not crazy. If if you're listening to this, uh of course, Jennifer, but others, if you're listening to this and this resonates with you, I need you to know that you're not crazy. Loss psychologically, it creates um a sense of disorientation because you're left with the kind of gaping hole of a question, what now? Now that this thing that I counted on, now that this thing that I derived my sense of identity from is gone, what now? What do I do now? Who am I now? Uh also fear about the future. When you go through a loss like like that, something where you had security, you had identity, you had safety, you had predictability. And then that thing goes away, um, it can shake you to your core. And it can cause you to um actually fear the future. Um, it can cause you to be unsettled and not really be able to trust that things are gonna work out because you thought this thing was so sure and it didn't work out. So it can create fear about the future. Um, it can also create emotional heaviness, and this is a real thing. I I want to just say my heart breaks for all of the people, and I've been in this situation who have essentially been told that you just need to get over it, you know, get over it, uh, get on with it. Uh, it wasn't that big of a deal. You can get another job, get another spouse, get another whatever. I just want to apologize and tell you um, God does not feel that way. God empathizes with you. He is near to the brokenhearted. And so the heavy emotions that you're carrying um are actually human. And I'm just sorry for every time somebody has told you to get over it and move on because your emotions made them uncomfortable. Many times people want us to hurry up and get on with it, not because they're concerned about our healing, but because they don't want to be uncomfortable anymore. And so I just want to apologize. Um, and then of course, loss can create a sense of instability, you know? Um, it gets back to that uncertain future, but it's also um, it can be kind of one of those post-traumatic stress situations where, you know, it's not just about the future being uncertain, it's about everything being uncertain. If this thing that I was so sure about fell apart, what does that say about everything else? So it can leave you feeling very, very unstable. Um, but you are definitely allowed uh to grieve without feeling like you're losing your faith. And I want to say that at the outset because I think sometimes, for whatever reason, people tend to think that grief and faith cannot coexist. That is such a lie. When we look at uh the story of Lazarus, all right, Jesus himself grieved. How is it? And I want you to think about this for a minute. How is it that Jesus grieved Lazarus, knowing he was going to raise him from the dead, right? Like, if I knew that a loved one passed away, but they were going to be raised from the dead in like 24 hours, I would just be like, okay, I'll see him tomorrow. That's the type of energy I would come into the situation with. Jesus knew he was gonna raise Lazarus from the dead, and yet he cried over the situation. But why did he cry? Not because he didn't know what was going to happen, but because he empathized with the grief of Lazarus's sisters and his friends. He was empathizing with their grief. Even though he knew he was gonna heal Lazarus, he was empath, empathizing, empathizing with their grief. And I need to say that so that you understand that God is not saying hurry up and get over it. God is saying, I'm with you in this as long as you need me to be, so that you can heal however long that takes. And for some of us, healing is going to literally take until we reach glory. And that's okay. And that's okay. Um I want to tell you a little bit about my personal story of loss, just so you know that I definitely understand um the emotions and I also understand um the tension of wanting to have hope for the future, wanting to remain optimistic about what's possible while also staring down the barrel of um no job. So, like I said, I shared in one of my um previous uh episodes about being laid off from Meta. And I will tell you, you know, it was without question one of the most destabilizing experiences I'd ever had. Um, I had received a promotion um a few months prior to the layoff. I was leading a global team. I was at a leadership level in the company, making really good money. Um, my family, our lifestyle was built around my compensation. We moved into a brand new beautiful home that we live in now. Um uh I think maybe early, earlier in that year, like in January of that year. And um when it happened, I think I definitely was in a twilight zone, but I think it left me with this sense that like nothing is is sure, nothing is stable, nothing can be can be counted on. Because if I could lose my job literally in the blink of an eye, with with no explanation why, besides Mark saying to us leaders, oh, well, we overhired and we have to like we have to correct those decisions now. And and it was just, it was just so um, it was very, very painful. Um, in the early part of it, I would say it was also a bit humiliating. Like, let's just be honest. It's like here I am with this really big role, really visible role, and um I lose my job through no fault of my own, just because there was a decision to restructure the company and had to lay off 11,000 people. Um, I was one of 11,000. Um, I had many, many colleagues who were let go, brilliant people, very productive people who had incredible performance and contributions to the company. So it was not even about um people's worth. However, um, in that moment, it can feel that way. It can feel that way. It can feel like, why was I let go and this person who I know isn't doing anything gets to stay? Why am I being let go when I know this person who has a bad heart and bad character, their only talent is they know how to lead up really well. Their only talent is they know how to suck up to leadership really well. Um, why do they get to stay? And so those early days were filled with questions, anxiety, uh, confusion, some anger. And um, in the midst of all of that, I also had to wrestle with the fact that God had actually called me into full-time ministry um months before the layoff happened. He'd actually been working on me to go into full-time ministry about a year and a half before the layoff happened. But I was of the mind that I needed a paycheck. I needed to be on somebody's payroll because I needed the predictability, I needed the stability uh that comes with employment. And so I disobeyed God. I was disobedient because I was like, well, I need, I need to get paid in order to survive. And God was like, No, you need me to survive. Um, one of my major takeaways from that whole process, because after I got laid off, I actually joined the uh senior leadership team of another tech company. Um, they created a great role for me at the chief executive level. Uh, I was a first woman, first person of color, uh, first woman of color to um sit at that level of leadership. Well, first person of color at that level. Um and so people were impressed by the role. They were impressed uh that I got to do it, but I need you to understand something. Um, man is impressed by your accolades and achievements, but there's only one thing that impresses God, and that is your faith. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. I don't care how much money you have, I don't care how famous you are. If you don't have faith, you're not impressing God. And so I say that because part of experiencing the joy of the Lord in the midst of loss is really about exercising faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, it's the evidence of things not seen. Um we experience joy and loss, not because we're in a situation of loss, but because I trust that God is working it together for my good. I trust that the future God is calling me to is so much better than the past He's calling me from. I trust in God's character. I trust in God's nature. And so um we can experience hope and joy and optimism in the midst of grief because of faith. Faith is what pleases God because what faith says is this situation doesn't feel good at all, but I know that God is good. And as long as God is good, then he's gonna make this work together for my good. And that helps us to reorient our posture in the middle of uh of grief. And that's really what helped me as I was going through all the emotions around what happened at Meta. Um it's like my faith, my faith like lifted me out of the mud of the pain and helped me to envision a future um where I where I was okay and my family was okay. And we are okay. And uh I would highly recommend you uh listen to the full testimony that I shared. Uh was talking in an episode um with a beautiful sister just talking about her um desire to surrender. How do you know when you fully surrender to God? I shared the full testimony in that uh episode. Um, and so there's a lot of twists and turns to the story, but I will tell you this: God proved himself to be faithful, God proved himself to be good. Um, my family and I, what should have been a loss was actually a gain. It was an acceleration in so many different ways. And so God is definitely good. Um, I do want to address, because for me, identity is everything. Identity is everything. So I always want to address how the experiences that we have can shape our identity. And more often than not, they misshape our identity. They malform our identity. So when we experience loss, the way that it can impact our identity is we first have the realization that I lost something or I was let go or I was abandoned. That happens. And then we can begin to explain that by saying, oh my gosh, I am behind, um, you know, I am disposable. We can start to assign labels to ourselves based on other people's choices. And then if we're not careful, we will slip into this belief that because this thing happened, my future is uncertain. I don't know what's going to happen, everything's out of control. Um, I need to figure out how to regain control in this situation. Um, we can also begin to slip into uh catastrophizing, where we say, I'm never going to recover from this, things will never get better. That was the best it could possibly be. And um, we can land in a place where we ultimately believe that we're not secure anymore. And once we get to that place, that's where hopelessness starts to take root. Once we get to the place that we see ourselves as disposable, or we see ourselves as somehow behind, or uh we we see ourselves through the prism of shame because of what happened, um, we can start to believe that our future is not just uncertain, but it is certainly bad. And when we come to that conclusion, the enemy loves it. The enemy loves it. Because when we come to that conclusion, we essentially lose hope. We essentially lose hope. And by losing hope, We end up losing faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. So if we lose our hope, our faith is next. And that's what the enemy is ultimately after. In Job chapter 1, verse 21, Job said, after he suffered incredible loss, incredible loss, he said, The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. This is not a casual statement. Job literally lost everything. He didn't just lose his home. He lost his home and his children. He didn't just lose his home and his children. He lost his home, his children, and his livelihood. Then he didn't just lose his home, children, and livelihood. He lost his home, his children, his livelihood, and his health. He lost it all. What's fascinating to me is that he didn't lose his wife. His wife was actually the one who was like, you should just curse God and die. Like, why is the wife still there? But anyway, I'm just being funny. Um, Job lost everything. He lost absolutely everything. And in the midst of it, he made a declaration. We don't know. I I suspect, I suspect that he was making this declaration not only out of deep anguish, but he was making this declaration just to try to shift the depression that was trying to overcome him. Because I cannot imagine losing everything and then being like, blessed be the name of the Lord. No, I believe that the way that he said that is the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I believe he said that not out of jubilancy, I don't know if that's a word, I just made it up, but I believe he said that out of anguish. But he was declaring over himself what he didn't even feel. He was declaring it over himself because our words have power. Um, what the enemy likes is he likes to get us into a circumstance where we're declaring doom and gloom and uh loss and hopelessness over ourselves, because uh just like when when God was creating the heavens and the earth and he spoke words that created, our words create. Uh, I believe it's Proverbs 18, 21. Life and death is in the power of the tongue. What we speak creates the fruit that we will eventually eat. And so that's why I believe he said, Blessed be the name of the Lord. Not because he felt blessed, not because he felt good, but because he wanted to create a reality that he was not yet living in. He anchored himself in who God is, not what he lost. And that is the shift that we have to make so that we don't descend into the grave of grief while we're still living. Habakkuk chapter 3, verses 17 through 18 says, Though the fig tree does not bud, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. What we see in this instance, and we see all throughout scripture, is that gratitude is not a moment. It's a posture, it's a lifestyle, it's a decision, and it's a set of decisions. It's a set of decisions that is not based on your circumstances, it's based on your convictions. And so I want to encourage you to think about okay, in these circumstances, in these situations where you have experienced loss and you're navigating grief and you're maybe even navigating, um, you're navigating the shame, the quiet shame of the loss. We don't talk about that much, but it's real. You're navigating the quiet shame of the loss. Um, I want you to commit yourself to building the muscle of gratitude. When we're in the midst of loss, I'm sorry, it is not natural to be grateful. It's not natural to be thankful. It's not natural to be like, this is the best thing that ever happened because it's not. But here's what gratitude does not look like in loss. It does not look like ignoring your pain. It does not look like forcing positivity, and it does not look like pretending everything is fine. That is not what gratitude is, okay? Don't pretend, don't ignore, and don't act like you're okay. Don't try to um force positivity, speak, you know, uh happy thoughts. Like that's that's fake. The Bible tells us, I believe it was in uh John 8.36, that you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Um, God is not calling us to lie, he's not calling us to deny, he's not calling us to deflect. He's calling us to be honest. Like this situation sucked, and I believe that God is still good. Gratitude acknowledges what is still true, it recognizes what remains, and it anchors your heart in God's character. Remember, it's not about the circumstance, it's about God's character. Who is God? Who was God? Because who God has been to you is who God is. Even though this situation is painful, even though it feels uh, it just feels like you'll never climb out of this, it feels like you'll things will never get better. That is not true. Remember who God was so that you can trust who God is in the middle of this circumstance. You can say, I am grieving, but God is still good. And I would even change that word, but because but basically invalidates what came before it. No, I am grieving and God is still good. I lost something and I am still held by God. I don't understand, and I still trust God. Uh hope is not optimism. Hope is not um false positivity. Hope is is believing. It's it's actually um it's actually orienting your heart and mind around what you expect. That's what hope is. And this is how you know someone is hopeless because their heart and mind has no expectation. When your heart and mind expects the best, that is hope. That is hope. So here's how I want you to reframe uh the thoughts that may be overtaking you as you're navigating this season of what feels like just loss and grief. Um, instead of asking, how do I feel grateful? I want you to ask, what is still true even now, in the midst of this loss, in the midst of this grief? What is still true? What is true about God? What is true about my circumstance? What is true about my life? Ask yourself that. Instead of saying, I lost everything, I want you to say, I lost something, but not everything. And begin to take an inventory of what you still have. You still have your health. Uh, you still have food in your refrigerator, you still have friends. Like take an inventory of what you still have. That's how we begin to actually activate the peace of God that is promised to us in Philippians 4, verse 7, the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. We activate it through thanksgiving, and we have to take an inventory of God's faithfulness for that. Instead of saying that my future is uncertain, I want you to say my future is still in God's hands. One of the things that the Lord has been so gracious to me to reveal to me is that even in an uncertain future, God is already there. Because God lives outside of time. He's in the past, the present, and the future. God exists in all points of time. Therefore, even though your future is uncertain, the faithfulness of God is already in the future. So you may not be able to rest in the details, but you could rest in God's presence. He's already there. He's already meeting you there. Um, four questions I want you to meditate on this week. All right. What am I grieving that I have not fully acknowledged? We want to get to a place of honesty before the Lord. Um what did what I lost represent to me? Like, what did it symbolize? The thing that I lost, the marriage, the the business, the friendship, the employment, uh, the health uh status. Like, what did that symbolize to me? And then what is still true about God even in this season? And last, what would it look like to trust God with my future again? Here's the thing: you can grieve and still be grateful. Um, you can feel lost and still have hope because it's a decision, it's a lifestyle, it's a posture. In the midst of your loss, in the midst of your grief, it's a decision to say, and God is still good, and I still have this, and I have a future and a hope, because that's the promise that God has made. I want to pray for all of you as we get ready to close. God, I'm grateful for everyone who's listening, everyone who's watching, and uh, we all are in one of three states we either came out of, are in, or about to go through something where grief is going to be our experience. My prayer, God, is that you would be with us in it. Give us a tangible reminder that you are with us in it. God, help us to stay focused on the things above. Lift our thoughts out of what went wrong and what we lost so that we can actually see what you are doing in the midst of it. Help us, God, not to lose hope. Help us, God, uh, to remember your faithfulness in everything. And may our lives be a testimony of your goodness and your glory. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Until next time, stay grounded in the goodness of God, even in the midst of bad situations. Because hope is not about your circumstance, it's about your conviction. It's about trusting God to be who he says he is in his word and who he's been in the past for you. As always, if no one has told you this, I want you to know that God loves you, and so do I. I'll see you next time.