Supporting our Grieving Loved Ones

We all know how it feels to look at someone and just not know what to say. Some pains in life are just so much deeper than our surface level words. We feel pressured to do something, or say something, say anything, to fix the situation. The silence is uncomfortable, so we blurt out our well intention-ed feel better phrases to try and comfort our friends in their darkest moments. Our words are unhelpful, insensitive, offensive, or at the very least fall short many times when we are just trying to help. I have been in the position of trying to find the right words to help comfort my loved ones. I have also been the person grieving who needed comfort. I've heard all the cliche phrases for grief that exist. From the simple "I'm sorry" to the "They're in a better place" to the (very annoying) vague inspirational quotes such as "everything happens for a reason". Nineteen years after my first profound loss I've concluded that the most comfort and peace I received wasn't from words at all.

The best advice from my experience that I can give to those who want to learn to comfort their grieving loved ones is to look past the cliches and look to the example of our Heavenly Father. One of my favorite realities throughout scripture is that God doesn't always comfort by taking the pain and hardships away. He gives us comfort through His presence in the midst of our grief. The more I am comforted by God the more I realize that our presence, merely walking through the depths of grief with our loved ones, is more meaningful than any string of words we could put together. In fact, I don't even remember most of the words people told me that were supposed to comfort me. What I do remember is the people that drove across the state after my grandpa passed away to be with me. These people gave me space to catch my breath, but I knew that they were there for anything I could possibly need. Their loving presence surrounding me as I walked through the depths of mourning was one of the greatest reflections of God that I've seen from humans. Thank you friends and family who intentionally stepped into my life after I lost my dad. Thank you family who came down to support me after my grandpa's funeral when I felt like I lost my father all over again. I wasn't ready to talk and you knew that, but now that I've had time to process I'm profoundly grateful.

God gave us His son Jesus to be a savior, sacrifice, and model of how we should live on Earth. Reading about the life of Jesus in the scriptures gives us a basis for our response to grief. Firstly, Jesus models for us that it is normal and even healthy to grieve in the face of loss. Scripture describes Jesus as "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3). Reading how Jesus wept over his friend Lazarus despite knowing that he would see him again made me feel that Jesus understands me. I do expect to see many of my loved ones that have passed on in Heaven someday, but it still hurts me to be separated from them in the meantime. It gives me peace to know that Jesus felt similarly and the perfect son of God wouldn't fault me for my grief. In the same way, I would encourage us all to not fault our loved ones for grieving or encourage them to act happy when it is time to mourn. People who are grieving, if the son of God gave himself time to fully grieve and express his emotion we need to allow ourselves to do the same.

Secondly, Jesus embraced the reality that life can be painful and we will all suffer at one point or another. Churches sometimes promote a false image of being happy and acting as though everything is okay, but Jesus never did. Jesus modeled for us that Joy and suffering can coexist. I respect how honest Jesus was when he told us we would endure great suffering in this lifetime. Amen, Jesus. One of the reasons that young people have said they are turning away from churches today is that so may of them make us feel that being a Christian means you must appear happy and ignore all the pain of life. As if going through a hard time means that God is not strong enough or we don't have enough faith. I truly believe that if we want to be like Jesus to those in pain we must be honest about how painful life is and walk through the depths of that pain with our friends and family. Of course while we do this we also need to communicate the truth that God offers hope in the midst of pain through his presence even as we mourn. 

Through my grief journey I have felt most comforted by people who have empathy for me, speak truth to me, and have offered their presence more than their words. But, I have also felt annoyed or hurt by people who undermined my pain or offered meaningless words rather than Godly truth. I do believe that God can equip people to comfort others and even that he calls us to do so. There were people that couldn't relate to my specific pain but they were instrumental in comforting me because they were there by my side doing small things to care for me as I walked through the pain. They never expected me to be perfect and let me cycle through every emotion that I needed to have. I was so grateful for these people. When I was ready to talk about my pain they were the first ones I turned to. As we comfort our friends in mourning I pray that we all reflect who Jesus was above anything else and that we all learn to comfort with our presence the way that God has done for all of us during our painful seasons.