Dr. Vernon J. Shazier
Grief is not always about death, but it always involves loss. The loss of a dream. The loss of normalcy. The loss of health, time, strength, or hope as we once knew it. It is not linear, predictable, or easy. It’s messy, sacred, and deeply personal. I know this not just as a pastor or a counselor, but as a father and husband who has had to sit with the weight of heartbreak far too often.
Years ago, my son, Ryan Shazier, suffered a spinal injury while playing professional football for the Pittsburgh Steelers. In a single moment, everything changed. As I watched him lay motionless on that field, my heart split in two. The dreams I had for him, the goals he had set for himself, all of them came crashing down with that one play. While we celebrate how far he has come since that night, I cannot deny the grief that has walked beside me through every step of his recovery.
At the same time, I’ve walked through another kind of suffering in my home. My wife’s long-term battle with Crohn’s Disease has been relentless. Watching someone you love endure chronic pain and medical uncertainty over years, sometimes decades, brings a slow grinding grief that few understand unless they’ve lived it.
These two realities, one sudden, one prolonged, have shaped how I understand grief. And while I’ve studied the Five Stages of Grief, lived experience has taught me that no model can fully capture the complexity of a wounded heart. Still, the framework can offer language and insight. So let me walk you through these stages, not just as theory, but through the lens of my own journey.
Denial: “This Can’t Be Happening”
When Ryan went down on that field, everything in me screamed, “This isn’t real.” I prayed it was a stinger. I prayed it was temporary. I prayed it was anything but what it was.
Denial isn’t always about disbelief, it’s about emotional overload. It’s your mind’s way of keeping you from collapsing under the weight of what’s happening. Similarly, when Crohn’s would flare up in my wife’s body, I would sometimes find myself thinking, “She’ll bounce back. This will pass soon.” Sometimes it did. Often, it didn’t.
Denial is not a failure of faith. It’s a form of grace. It gives us space to breathe before we must face what we cannot yet carry.
Anger: The Silent Scream
There were moments I was angry, angry at the game, angry at the doctors, angry at God. I would never say I lost my faith, but I had some hard conversations with the One who holds my family in His hands.
When your child is suffering, or when your spouse is in pain with no relief in sight, anger is a natural outcry. We get angry because we care. Because we love deeply. I’ve learned not to shame that anger, but to bring it to God in raw honesty. God is not intimidated by our emotion, He’s a refuge for it.
Bargaining: The “What Ifs”
Bargaining often happens in silence. I remember replaying moments in my head, What if he had slid differently? What if the hit was one inch lower? What if we had caught the symptoms sooner? What if we had found a different doctor?
These thoughts don’t always make sense. But they’re part of the process. Bargaining reflects our yearning to have some control, to make sense of what we couldn’t stop. It’s the heart’s way of wrestling with the helplessness that loss brings.
Depression: The Quiet Weight
This is the stage that lingers. As a man of faith, I know joy is promised, but some days, I just feel tired. Tired of watching the people I love suffer. Tired of waiting for good news. Tired of being strong.
There were days I didn’t want to talk. Days I didn’t want to preach. Days I questioned whether I could keep encouraging others when my own soul was aching. That, too, is grief.
Depression in grief isn’t always clinical, it’s often situational. It’s not a lack of hope; it’s the price of love. I’ve come to accept that sorrow is not weakness. Sometimes, it’s the holiest thing we carry.
Acceptance: A New Kind of Strength
Acceptance doesn’t mean I’m okay with what happened. It means I’ve stopped fighting the reality of it. I’ve learned to embrace new dreams for Ryan, ones that are just as powerful, just as meaningful. I’ve learned to support my wife in ways that honor the endurance and grace she models every day.
Acceptance looks like trusting God with what I cannot change and doing what I can with what’s in my hands. It’s holding joy and sorrow in the same breath. It’s standing up, day after day, knowing that though life didn’t go as planned, it’s still worth living fully and faithfully.
Grief is Not Linear. Healing is Not Final.
Let me be transparent: I still have days where I feel like I’m back in stage one. Grief is not a staircase. It’s more like a spiral. Sometimes you revisit what you thought you left behind. But that doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re human.
And grief doesn’t always resolve. Sometimes it becomes a companion, a quiet ache that walks with you as life moves forward. That’s not brokenness, it’s love with nowhere to go.
So, Where Are You Now?
That question isn’t to pressure you, it’s an invitation. Maybe you’re still in shock. Maybe you’re angry, tired, or numb. Maybe you’re healing, slowly. Maybe you’re like me—holding all of it at once.
Wherever you are, I want you to know it’s okay. Your grief matters. Your story matters. And if you’re walking through suffering, I pray this honest reflection reminds you: you are not alone. You are seen. You are loved. And you are still standing.
Bio: Dr. Vernon J. Shazier, father of retired NFL player Ryan Shazier, is an author, speaker, pastor, chaplain, and leadership coach. He is also a Truett Seminary graduate.
