While on the phone with a clergy friend who was in the middle of his grief journey, he asked me to hold on.
“There’s a weird noise outside, let me check and see what’s going on.”
“Andrea, they came and mowed my lawn. They didn’t ask (because I would have told them I could do it). They just showed up.”
And at speaking those words, he cried.
Grief has a way of impacting us in ways so that we honestly can’t process things in the same manner that we always have. We feel as if we are “losing it” when in reality, it is just grief.
Grief has a way of silencing us. When loss enters the room, it doesn’t ask permission. It just takes up space—heavy, uninvited. And in that weight, even the simplest acts—asking for help, explaining what we need, putting language to our pain—feel impossible.
It’s like trying to breathe underwater.
Maybe that’s why, in our most profound sorrow, we don’t always know how to ask for what we need. Sometimes we can barely name it ourselves.
So what if we embrace a different concept about real love?
Real love doesn’t wait to be asked.
Real love anticipates.
There is a power of presence without prompting
Henri Nouwen wrote about wounded healers—those who have walked through pain and now hold space for others without waiting for instruction. Ruth was one of those people.
She didn’t ask Naomi, “What can I do?”
She didn’t say, “Let me know if you need anything.”
She just stayed.
“Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.” (Ruth 1:16)
She showed up. She remained. She didn’t wait for Naomi to have the strength to explain her grief.
Love doesn’t require a roadmap. It just walks beside you.
If you’ve ever been grieving and someone looked at you and just knew—if they showed up at your door, if they brought food, they shoveled your driveway, mowed your grass, if they sat beside you in the silence and made space for your sorrow—then you’ve felt the kind of love Jesus modeled.
So what does that look like for us? How do we love in a way that carries the weight without waiting for words?
Bring the meal. Don’t wait for someone to say, “I haven’t had time to cook.” Just bring it.
Sit in the silence. Don’t fill the space with words that make you more comfortable. Just be there.
Check in—again. Grief doesn’t end when the funeral is over. Keep showing up, long after the world moves on.
Offer what you can, without expectation. Some days, presence will be received with gratitude. Other days, with distance. Stay anyway.
Love that anticipates needs is the kind of love that mirrors Christ. It’s the kind of love that says without saying:
“You don’t have to explain your pain for me to stay close.”
“You don’t have to know what you need for me to offer care.”
“You don’t have to say a word for me to see you.”
Because sometimes the holiest love is the one that arrives unannounced, sits without a word, and remains.
Prayer
“God of the unspoken and unseen, teach us to love without waiting to be asked. Give us the wisdom to know when to speak and when to simply stay. Help us to hold space for others the way You hold space for us—with patience, without demand, and with a presence that does not waver. Amen.”
Maybe love’s greatest gift isn’t in what it says, but in what it sees, what it anticipates, and how it stays.
So today, instead of asking, “How can I help?”—just help.
Instead of waiting for someone to reach out, reach first.
Because love doesn’t need to be invited. It just shows up.