How do you come alongside someone who is grieving? This question is critical in for any believer, even more so as we are facing an insurmountable number of challenges and loss in the past year. As many of us know, losing a loved one is never easy. Sometimes the hurt extends beyond the initial loss to our interactions with our friends and family later on as we attempt to navigate our connection with new context.
As those who are on the outside of these situations, wanting to engage with our friends who have experienced loss can be awkward and confusing, not wanting to say the wrong thing or not knowing the “right thing to say.” Rather than trying to fix the situation, we can follow the advice of Nancy Guthrie that, “you just have to show up and say little. What they need more than someone with a lot of words is someone with a willingness to listen without judgment, someone who seems to be entering into their hurting world for the long haul of grief.”