Grieving: Silence please…

A teacher once told me the following when talking about conversation techniques:

The person who talks the most in a conversation will be the most satisfied with the conversation at the end of the conversation.

Anyone who thinks a little further will understand that that statement is incorrect (because it is a simplification and not necessarily true. The relationship between talking and happiness in conversations is complex and is influenced by many more factors) but still… there is definitely something in it…

I recently had a conversation with someone who had lost a family member a few years ago. I asked him if he had any tips for me on what someone should or should not say in a conversation with someone who has just suffered a great loss. And he came up with the following tip that he had read somewhere and agreed with 100%:

• He said some people came with Bible verses, explanations and theology about his loss, and he couldn’t wait for them to leave.
• Others just sat with him in silence, not saying much unless he spoke to them. And he said he couldn’t wait for them to come back for a visit.

Often saying nothing and listening is better than saying something. Let alone saying something completely wrong at the wrong time.

1: Too often we see that people, in all their goodness, sometimes say things that absolutely DO NOT help at that very moment. Suppose you have just lost your partner, child, father or mother and today is the funeral. And someone then says the following:

I don’t know why this terrible thing happened, but I do know that God will make everything work together for good.

While that is theologically correct, (Romans 8:28) how would you respond if someone said that to you at that very moment? I know I would freak out if someone said that to me at that very moment. That would not comfort me at all, and would actually make me feel very misunderstood and lonely. We see the victims of this well-intentioned “comfort” into our practice, and that is more than sad to see. Not only have they not been helped, but they now feel even lonelier….

2: another one?

I don’t know why this terrible thing happened, but I do know that God has a plan. Trust that.

And although that also sounds very biblical… something is going terribly wrong there too. Not only is Jeremiah 29:11 quickly dragged in and taken COMPLETELY out of context, but also there… is that the time to say things like that??? In this way, “theology” makes victims and does not help. On the contrary. If we do this, we may try to alleviate the “grieving”, but we don’t. Just because something is biblically correct does not mean it is always tactful or helpful at the moment. There is a difference between what is truth and what is helpful…

3: The Bible is clear that there is a time to mourn. Thirty percent of the Psalms are about mourning, so let us give that sorrow the space that is absolutely there and must be. In Romans 12:15 we see a great explanation about this:

Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.

Romans 12:15

So don’t try to skip steps in grieving too quickly by talking too quickly about God’s sovereignty. (He has the power, wisdom and authority to do anything He chooses within His creation.) Verses such as Romans 8:28 and Genesis 50:20, for example, could remain on the shelf for a while…. There is a very good chance that that is NOT the time to pick up those verses. Take time to grieve together what happened. Be quiet, listen, and don’t say anything for a moment. Grieve with those who grieve.

4: Don’t be too quick to say, “I went through that as well, but God used it for His glory in my life.” Also there, it may well be the truth, but is this the time?? Is that really going to help? Even an “I know how you feel” can be explosive. Because in all honesty: “You are not me, I am not you, so what do you know about how I feel?” Do you feel the tension? So try not to do that at that moment either. If you would like to do that, rather say: “I may understand 0.00000000000000001% how you feel because of my own experiences, but in all honesty: how you really feel and how deep your sadness is? I really have no idea how deep your pain is right now, and your sadness touches me enormously.” Repetition: Grieve with those who grieve. It’s okay to say that you don’t get it either and don’t know how to deal with it right now. That gives space in a conversation.

5: Try to avoid “Job”. A big lesson to be learned from Job, is that the “comfort” his friends tried to give him was often theologically correct, but the timing was entirely wrong. And at the end of Job, we also see that God was not happy with that approach of those friends. When we, in our practice, have conversations with people and say that we might have a Bible verse that could help them, we often get the response: “Isn’t that the story of Job?!”. The story of Job is great, but often not suitable for quick use when someone is still in the middle of all the misery. Ditto: Be quiet, listen, and don’t say anything for a moment. Grieve with those who grieve.

6: Speaking of Job, let’s look at this Bible verse:

In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.

Job 1:1

Suppose you had said to Job at that time: “It’s not so bad after all”, “John Doe must not have meant that badly with what he said to you”, “you also played a role in it” or “Where two quarrel, two are to blame.” Would that have helped Job? Job had done nothing bad, had no guilt. He was blameless and upright. So saying things like that doesn’t work. Stop it. Do not minimize/play down another person’s misbehavior that caused the suffering. The evil that befell Job was unjustified and very real. A lot of misery in this world is caused by bad people destroying good and innocent people. If we do not fully recognize the misery of someone else, we are not doing the right thing if we want to help someone in the grieving process. Bad examples are: “yes, you were raped, but yes… perhaps you should have had a different appearance, then it would have been prevented.” Say what?! And yet, the victims of the “It’s not so bad after all”, “John Doe probably didn’t mean it that bad with what he said to you”, “you played a role in it yourself”, we see them at least once a week. And then we not only have the problem that was there initially (in this example a rape), but also a second problem that we have turned the victim into a kind of perpetrator?? That can’t be true, can it? And yet… at least once a week we see victims like that. Recognize evil, acknowledge suffering.

7: In addition to the previous one, keep the following in mind: “The other person’s perception is his truth.” If someone feels miserable because of something that went bad, I don’t always have to agree or understand why something went wrong, but the fact that the other person feels miserable is the current truth for that person. Example: someone says that he has been wrongfully imprisoned for murder and feels very miserable in prison, then that feeling of “feeling miserable” is 100% the truth for him. Whether he is rightly imprisoned or not is irrelevant. We must accept that feeling he describes as his truth, and we must work with it, and we cannot “push away” that feeling. If someone says that you hurt him/her, you don’t have to understand why it hurts, but that the other person is in pain is their truth. You can’t ignore that. Pain/grief perception = truth.

8: Do you know the saying: “time heals all wounds”? Or “You’ll be OK”? DO NOT SAY THAT! Not every wound we receive in this life is healed. Full stop. Everyone dies, everyone gets sick and when we say “it will be okay / time heals all wounds” that is a lie and not theologically correct. Genesis 3:15-19 is clear about the consequences of sin. The correct theological explanation is that we definitely suffer from “thorns and thistles” in this earthly life, but that an eternity awaits us where they will no longer be there. But the “it will be okay” is a half-truth, and even the whole truth “The best is yet to come” is not necessarily healing at that moment. On the contrary.

9: A Bible verse that is theologically correct, but also too often wrong used, is the following:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

James 1:2-4

Yes, the testing of your faith produces perseverance through all trials, but is this really the time to say that??? Strengthening your faith through trials should never be a reason to neglect or even forget compassion. On the contrary. Let there be a time for compassion and mourning first, and perhaps someday… in some distant, distant, future, there will be time to use that verse. Very often it is really better to say nothing than to quote this Bible verse. Your friend is going through a very deep valley and now needs love, an arm around them, a listening ear. And a Bible study of how their faith is strengthened by this suffering? There could, in fact, absolutely no room for it right now. Grieve with those who grieve.

10: Christ does not protect us from suffering today, and the problem of evil is real and painful. Repetition: Genesis 3:15-19 is also for you today, there is no escaping it. Evil exists, there is grief. Jesus wept and was in pain. (John 11:35; Luke 19:41; Hebrews 5:7-9 and more) What does God do?

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34:18

Being near, as stated so beautifully in that verse, is often more than enough at that moment of deep sorrow. Let the person in the middle of all that suffering calmly tell his story. Let him speak and give him plenty of space to do so. Don’t say anything at all, just be there. Do as it says in that Psalm: be near to people with great sorrow. That is often more than enough. Silence please…..

Final conclusion: in our practice, we spend a lot of time trying not to say anything. We are very busy listening and especially being quiet for a while. We are very busy “letting people talk”. Sometimes we are very busy just “being there”. Mourning and sadness are therefore given a place. And only when that is done… and that may take “a while”, will we start talking…. but first we are very busy being very close to them and grieving with those who are grieving.