How Not To Comfort The Grieving

How do I comfort someone who is grieving? It's a question that never seems quite easy to answer. After all, what if I can't relate? Or what if what I am going through seems worse than what they are?

I once heard another missionary talking about their child crying over something trivial. I don't remember what it was, but I distinctively remember the missionary's words. She said, "It may not be a big deal compared to someone dying of malnutrition or being shot by a gang member, but it is still painful. And I will never tell my child, 'toughen up, you don't get to cry because you don't have it as bad as so and so'".

This struck something in me. Oh how often we do this to ourselves and others! We've all heard it. After all, it's what our parents would say when we didn't like the food set before us. "Don't complain, at least you aren't starving like the kids in Africa"....

Maybe it was just a ploy to get a small stubborn person to eat their veggies, but what about when it is used to try and comfort someone who is grieving?

Just Don't Say It

After I miscarried my first child in 2023. The grief hit me hard and the guilt weighed me down. Thoughts of, "If I had only done something different, then maybe", crossed my mind.

In that time someone said to me, "Well, at least you were only 10 weeks along. Imagine if you had been months along like some other women." Maybe it was true, I am sure the physical pain of a later loss would be worse. However, I wanted my baby. My baby was a gift. My baby mattered. And the loss of my baby was worth being sad over.

So, if you cannot relate to someone who is going through a season of grief. If you don't know what to say, say nothing. It is better to care in silence than to downplay a loss by comparing it to a greater pain or injustice in the world.

Too Much Depravity To Grieve

I believe, from personal experience, that the more pain and injustices we see out there the harder it is to let ourselves grieve. Because suddenly the disappointments we face seem so small compared to the literal devastation we have seen others go through.

And while the blessing of being spared from tragedy should give me some perspective and help me take my eyes off of myself. I must also realize that it's ok to grieve the small things.

The world doesn't have to be literally crumbling around us in order for us to grieve. So, I want you to speak to yourself for a moment and tell yourself that it's ok to not be ok in this season. Seeing the great suffering of the world does not mean that you cannot cry over something because it's not as bad as someone else's pain.

Mourning With Another

I can count on one hand the number of times I have physically felt God move. Times I've heard a still small voice or felt a surge of energy moving me to act in some specific way. Last Sunday, was one of them.

I'd had a particularly hard and emotionally draining week. We were led into a time of prayer after service as the song played "The darkest night, you can light it up. You can light it up, oh God of revival. Let hope arise. Death is overcome. You've already won, oh God of revival.."

Tears formed in my eyes as I thought of my own problems and sorrows. And then all of the sudden it was if I forgot all of it and my mind became singularly focused on someone else in the congregation. Someone who has been suffering. I began to pray for them in my heart. And then I moved to place my hand on this person the words just came. All at once I was praying without thinking of what to say. It was as if a flood gate opened and I couldn't hold back.

Afterwards I stood at my seat physically trembling. I remembered the burden and the pain of my hard week and I had peace. Peace that God really did see me in my suffering. And that He will come and light up my darkness. Just as he made me aware of the suffering of another, He is already aware of my sufferings.

In Good Company

And so you see, in comforting those who mourn, we do not have to just get over our own sadness. We don't have to forget ourselves to remember another. In comforting those who mourn we can find God there. There, in the messy. There, in the tears. There, using our pain for good, to relate to the hurting.

We don't have to downplay our own sorrow in order to care for those who are walking through greater pain. And we shouldn't, because our God cares about even the smallest of sorrows. So should we.

• Matthew 5:4 - Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
• Psalm 34:18 - The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
• Matthew 11:28-30 - Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 
• Psalm 73:26 - My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portionforever.
• Jeremiah 8:18 - You who are my Comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me.
• Psalms 31:9 - Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief.
• Jeremiah 31:13 - Then young women will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.
• 2 Corinthians 7:11 - See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.

Take heart, you who are grieving, you are in good company. Because your grief is meant to bring you into the presence of the comforter. This, this is how you comfort the grieving person. You share your pain, you care about theirs, and ultimately you grab their hand and with them you kneel before the only one who can bring comfort.