Today, we are talking about being anchored above and finding peace after a loss. And today I’m excited because I have a special guest, and she’s extra special because she’s related to me. So Ashlyn Avant is my daughter-in-law, and I want do a brief introduction first.
Alyssa: She is a daughter, a wife. And a girl learning daily what it means to fully trust God. And she recently started a new Instagram page, which inspired her page, and inspired me to ask her to come on the podcast because her page was created during a season of loss and new beginnings.
After losing her mom, she found herself turning to scripture more, and she also got married. She and my son Baker got married on December 6th, so just about two months ago. So they are very much still newlywed and you can find her page anchored above on Instagram. And so we are going to dive into the interview. I will start that. So we are starting with the experience that you had.
It’s been almost two years now. When your mom passed away in November of 2024, what were some of the first emotions that you experienced?
Ashlyn: Yes, anger initially, which was confusing because I don’t consider myself an angry person. But it, I was angry at myself for a while, thinking that there was something different that I could do.
But really, I was angry at God, ’cause I had thought, why would you allow something like this to happen? But yeah, underneath all of that anger, I really think it was just heartbreak.
Alyssa: Definitely. And one of the things that I wanted listeners to know is, is very young, you can tell just by looking at her, and no, she had just started her first year at university, so she had moved in August, and her mom died in November, and she was just 20 years old at the time.
Going through a lot of changes, of moving away from home for the first time. So I wanted you to know that in that experience as well.
So how did grief affect you emotionally and then also spiritually in those first few weeks?
Ashlyn: Emotionally, I was exhausted and overwhelmed.
There were a lot of different people who had a lot of different reactions to this, and I’ve always been the kind of person to control everybody else or feel like I need to. But some days I would cry constantly, and then some days I would just be numb. But spiritually, I struggled more than I had expected.
I found myself where I didn’t really wanna read my Bible at all. I didn’t want to talk to God or pray just ’cause I was so angry with him. But even when I chose to be distant, he was still near, like holding me until I could figure out how to come back to him and be honest about my hurt.
Alyssa: Yeah, absolutely. So you said that you clung to the scripture in a way that you never had before. So during that process, what do you think changed?
Ashlyn: I always grew up, and I had always been taught the importance of scripture in our lives. But after she had died, it changed the way I like to hold scripture or my perspective on it.
Scripture felt like the only thing that was constant at the time. As I said, there were a lot of different things going on. But it went from something that I just learned to something that I leaned on every day. For everything.
Alyssa: Yeah, it’s like a lot of us probably, I can tell you early on in my life learning Scripture, I can remember learning it in Bible school, years and years ago, and most of the time we were probably learning it just to get the candy that they would give us for learning the verse or whatever, but it’s really different as an adult learning scripture and also, utilizing it in your everyday life because it’ll come back. That’s why I think the word says to “hide in our heart” because then you know it’s there and you can use it when you need it, and you don’t even have to have your Bible.
So that’s to me how God speaks through his word to help us in times of grief or anxiety or fear or any, yeah, I think you can put any emotion in that blank there, and then that’s what God uses the scripture for.
So was there a specific verse or a passage that became your anchor during this time?
Ashlyn: I would say Isaiah 43:2, “When you pass through deep waters, I will be with you.”
That’s a promise to us. Not if we go through something, but when we do, because, as Christians, we’re not promised easy lies. If anything, it gets a little more difficult. But it was a promise to me, or that reminded me that the pain didn’t mean that God had left me at the time.
It meant that I was walking through something hard and that he was with me through it.
Alyssa: So just because you had experienced the pain didn’t mean that God was gone. It was just the situation that he had allowed to happen. So you were in that place and then, of course, during this time you had lots of emotions about the loss and the grief, but you also had good things happening as well.
Your life. And to give them a little background, Baker and Ashlyn had been dating for a little while prior to her mom’s death, and they had actually become engaged in July, right before they left for college in August. And so soon after, obviously in the last few months, they have stepped into a marriage during this same season.
And what was it like to hold both grief and joy at the same time?
Ashlyn: Yeah. As you said, a lot was going on at the time. We had just gotten engaged, just started college or university. And then this other big, like monumental thing happened. So it was complicated, and it was confusing.
I was thankful for the new season of life that I was in, and I was thankful for you and Baker and your family just to be there and love on me. I was excited about building a future and starting a new chapter, but. On the same table, my heart hurt because I wanted her to be there for me picking out my flowers, the bridesmaid dresses, and then, I wanted her to be on that front row to sit there and see me.
So it was hard balancing those different emotions, a high of excitement and then the lowest of lows. But I learned that you can cry and celebrate within the same breath. Joy doesn’t erase grief, and grief doesn’t cancel out your joy.
Alyssa: Yeah, that is so wise. I think that’s what I was most impressed by with Ashlyn. I’ve loved her from the day I think that I met her. If you meet her. Her favorite color is yellow. And I will say that she represents that color well because she’s like sunshine when she pops into the room. And it’s funny because my son is a very serious person, and she is that balance because she’s very fun and outgoing.
But I got to witness all of that with her wedding and with being honored to sit on the other end of the pew where we honored your mom. And so it was a joyful day, and I know that she was there in spirit for sure. So as we wrap things up, I know that you have found peace through this and through this experience.
And what does the phrase true peace is found above look like in real life?
Ashlyn: Yeah. Yeah. It looks like choosing to trust God on days that I still don’t understand. That grief doesn’t just go away. It’s still there behind the curtain. But it’s waking up and choosing to give him that hurt every day, like again and again.
It’s knowing that peace isn’t in the absence of sadness, it’s in the presence of Jesus in the middle of that sadness.
Alyssa: And so that is where it is a daily choice to choose Jesus rather than our circumstances. And so when the, obviously, we know that I have another person in my life who lost someone recently, and she told me afterwards in a conversation that her grief comes in waves.
And so when those waves come, what keeps you from drifting?
Ashlyn: Yeah. I like to say that grief is like glitter. It’s just there; after you clean it all up, you still find it randomly. But remembering that God, who he has already been to me, I remember his faithfulness during one of the hardest times in my life so far. And it makes it easier to know how faithful he is gonna be to me in the future.
And knowing that the same guy who carried me through this has not changed, and he won’t change. So he’ll just continue to carry me.
Alyssa: That’s right. Absolutely. And I’m glad that even though you had to learn that early in your life, I think that it’ll help you a lot in the future.
You can find Ashlyn’s Instagram account, Anchored Above, where she seeks to encourage others to find their anchor in the Lord and his word.