The Hand I Thought Would Save Me

There are seasons in life when grief doesn’t knock—it breaks the door wide open and drags you under before you can even understand what’s happening.

In that kind of darkness, all you want is a hand to hold. After a loss that hollowed me out, I reached for the first hand that looked steady. Warm. Promising. It felt like timing. Like divine placement. Like an answer to a whispered ache.

But that’s the thing about shadows—they can look like shelter when your eyes are full of tears. I thought I had found someone who would guide me back to solid ground. Someone who would help me breathe again. Someone who appeared gentle enough to trust with my cracked, grieving heart. But as the days unfolded, the warmth turned sharp. The comfort became a cage.The words, once soft, grew heavy with a weight I couldn’t name.

It’s strange how destruction can disguise itself as protection. How someone can mirror the very thing you prayed for, yet carry something entirely different beneath it.

There is a kind of harm that doesn’t bruise the skin—it bruises who you believe you are. It slowly convinces you that breaking is your fault. That confusion is normal. That silence is safer. And when you’re grieving, when your soul is already fragile, it is terrifyingly easy for a counterfeit to feel like a calling.

I didn’t realize until much later that the hand I grabbed wasn’t steady at all. It only pretended to be, long enough to pull me deeper. Grief cracked me open.

But misuse of trust tried to finish the job. And for a long time, I couldn’t see the difference.

This is where this week’s story ends—at the moment the illusion shattered.

Next week, I’ll tell you what came after: how the real rescue began. Because there was a rescue.

And it looked nothing like what I expected.