Silence.
For seven days, Job’s friends sat with him in the dust, bearing witness to his grief. No explanations. No attempts to fix what had been shattered. Just presence. And in that stillness, there was something holy.
But then—they spoke.
And the words, well-intentioned as they may have been, did not heal. They wounded. They tried to force Job’s suffering into neat theological boxes, offering explanations where there were none, searching for reasons where none could satisfy.
We do this too.
We rush to fill the silence of grief with words that, while meant to comfort, often miss the mark:
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“God needed them more than we did.”
“You’re so strong.”
“Just have faith.”
Maybe you’ve heard these words. Maybe you’ve spoken them. Maybe, like me, you’ve realized that sometimes we say them not because they are true, but because silence makes us uncomfortable. Because grief is messy, and we’d rather clean it up than sit in its wreckage.
But Jesus shows us another way.
When Mary collapsed at His feet, overcome with the loss of her brother Lazarus, Jesus—who knew resurrection was coming—didn’t rush to explain. He didn’t remind her that God has a plan. He didn’t tell her to stay strong.
He wept.
He entered into her sorrow, not to fix it, but to honor it. To sit in the ache. To let her know she was not alone.
What if we did the same? What if, instead of reaching for empty words, we reached for presence? Instead of trying to explain grief away, we simply acknowledged its weight?
Because sometimes the holiest thing we can say is nothing at all.
What to Say Instead
“I’m here with you.”
“This is really hard.”
“I remember when…” (share a specific memory)
“Would you like to tell me about them?”
Nothing at all—just your presence.
Prayer
“Lord, sometimes the words of others hurt more than help. Give me grace when I hear painful platitudes. Help me remember that You sit with me in my pain without trying to fix it. And when I am tempted to offer easy words to others, remind me of the power of simple presence. Amen.”
Grief doesn’t need to be explained away. It doesn’t need to be rushed.
It needs to be witnessed.
Even Jesus wept.
So, let’s learn to sit in the silence. To let the weight of loss be what it is. And to trust that God’s presence is big enough for all of it—the unanswered questions, the unspeakable sorrow, the ache that lingers.
Because sometimes, the most sacred thing we can do is simply be there.