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What Grieving People Wish You Knew about What Really Helps (and What Really Hurts) E-Book

Nancy Guthrie

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Herausgeber: Crossway
Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
Sprache: Englisch
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

We want to say or do something that helps our grieving friend. But what? When someone we know is grieving, we want to help. But sometimes we stay away or stay silent, afraid that we will do or say the wrong thing, that we will hurt instead of help. In this straightforward and practical book, Nancy Guthrie provides us with the insight we need to confidently interact with grieving people. Drawing upon the input of hundreds of grieving people, as well as her own experience of grief, Nancy offers specifics on what to say and what not to say, and what to do and what to avoid. Tackling touchy topics like talking about heaven, navigating interactions on social media, and more, this book will equip readers to support those who are grieving with wisdom and love.

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“Most of us struggle with what to say and how to help when interacting with a person who is grieving. This wonderful book will help you be more comfortable ministering after a death because you’ll better understand what your family member or friend needs most. I read this book on an airplane, headed for a funeral. I learned helpful things that I was able to use immediately.”

Steve Grissom, Founder, GriefShare

“Grief persists as a constant presence in a fallen world. And as common as grief is, so is the silence of friends or family members who aren’t quite sure how to help. Nancy Guthrie’s What Grieving People Wish You Knew enters into this silent void and offers the clear and practical voice of experience and wisdom. In a unique and captivating way, Guthrie unleashes the testimonies of numerous individuals who have recently experienced grief. Their words, along with Guthrie’s synthesis, allow the reader to know what truly helps and what truly hurts as we seek to minister to our grief-stricken loved ones. Do you want to be a good friend to those grieving around you? Then this is the book for you.”

Jason Helopoulos, Associate Pastor, University Reformed Church, East Lansing, Michigan; author, A Neglected Grace: Family Worship in the Christian Home

“Someday, someone close to each of us will die. During that difficult time, the right words can comfort us and point us to Christ. What Grieving People Wish You Knew offers great counsel from those who went through the dark days of a loved one’s death. For friends of the grieving, this book can help you to offer comfort. In this book are examples of healing words that grievers need to hear—told by those who longed to hear them. These stories from those of us who have grieved, and are still grieving, will give believers the confidence to come and sit with us on the mourning bench.”

Mark Green, President, The White Horse Inn

“What Grieving People Wish You Knew is a timely and priceless resource for men and women who are compelled to live out the Bible’s directive to ‘weep with those who weep’ but feel helpless to do so. This book is profoundly practical, and I am personally grateful to have it as a resource to share with so many who desire to love the grieving well.”

Raechel Myers, cofounder, She Reads Truth

“Nancy Guthrie writes pointedly about trying to minister to hurting people. We can all learn much from poor examples—from Job’s miserable comforters. What Grieving People Wish You Knew provides an A+ lesson plan in what not to say and do as comforters. Of course, Nancy does not stop there, for she also writes poignantly about Christlike comfort. With wisdom and compassion, Nancy weaves Scripture, her story, and the stories of scores of grievers to encourage, empower, and equip us to esteem grief and to care like Christ as we minister to those who grieve.”

Bob Kellemen, Biblical Counseling Chair, Crossroads Bible College; author, God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting

“This book is tender, compassionate, clear, honest, gospel-rich, and practical. There is nothing distant and theoretical about it, because it’s written out of the deep well of the author’s own experience. I now know what I will give to everyone God sends my way who is suffering loss.”

Paul David Tripp, President, Paul Tripp Ministries; author, New Morning Mercies

“In the aftermath of deep loss, grievers struggle to articulate what is helpful. These honest and practical suggestions will equip tenderhearted people to come alongside us as we grieve.”

Kay Warren, cofounder, Saddleback Church; international speaker; best-selling author, Choose Joy

What Grieving People Wish You Knew about What Really Helps (and What Really Hurts)

What Grieving People Wish You Knew

about What Really Helps (and What Really Hurts)

Nancy Guthrie

What Grieving People Wish You Knew about What Really Helps (and What Really Hurts)

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Josh Dennis

First printing 2016

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

All emphases in scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-5235-9ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-5238-0PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-5236-6Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-5237-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Guthrie, Nancy, author.

Title: What grieving people wish you knew about what really helps (and what really hurts) / Nancy Guthrie.

Description: Wheaton : Crossway, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Subjects: LCSH: Bereavement--Religious aspects--Christianity. | Grief—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Consolation.

Classification: LCC BV4905.3 .G89 2016 (print) | LCC BV4905.3 (ebook) | DDC 248.8/66—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016017699

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-03-03 03:47:48 PM

With admiration and appreciation, I dedicate this book to the thousands of GriefShare facilitators in churches around the country who, week by week, meet with grieving people who are trying to navigate their way through the hardest and darkest place they’ve ever been. Each of you could write a book like this yourself, because you have heard so many people lament the sorrow that was added to their sorrow by those who didn’t know better, as well as the comfort provided by those who had the courage to reach out. Thank you for listening to their stories, giving them a safe place to voice their lingering questions, painful regrets, and aching loneliness, even as you point them toward the healing to be found in Christ.

Contents

Introduction

1 What to Say (and What Not to Say)

2 Typical Things People Say (and What You Can Say Instead)

3 Assumptions We Make That Keep Us Away (and Why We Should Simply Show Up)

4 What to Do (and What Not to Do)

5 Social Media and Grief (When the “Like” Button Just Seems Wrong)

6 Let’s Talk about Talking about Heaven (and Hell)

7 A Few Quick Questions (and Answers)

Conclusion

Notes

Subject Index

Scripture Index

Introduction

I have to tell you something up front: I think you’re awesome. I assume you’re reading this book or considering reading this book because you want to figure out how you can be a better friend to people around you who are going through the devastation of losing someone they love. You want to be better equipped for the awkward interactions. You don’t want to be that person who said the stupid, hurtful thing. Instead you want to grow in your ability to come alongside someone who is hurting and enter in. So I applaud you for being willing to invest in finding out more about what that looks and sounds like.

To be honest, I didn’t think much about grief or grieving people for most of my life. I didn’t have to. Or, what is, perhaps, more deeply true, is that I didn’t choose to. I suppose I operated with a convenient naiveté about the deep sorrow and social awkwardness people experience when someone they love dies. But once you’ve been there, it is more difficult to keep an unaffected distance from people in your world who have lost someone and are wondering how the world around them could just keep on turning as if nothing has changed, since it feels as if their world has collapsed.

Grief barged through the doors of our lives uninvited on November 24, 1998. That was the day a geneticist who had just examined our two-day-old daughter, Hope, came to my hospital room and told my husband, David, and me that he suspected Hope had a rare metabolic disorder called Zellweger syndrome. This meant that all of her cells were missing a tiny sub-cellular particle called “peroxisomes” that rids the cells of toxins. A great deal of damage had already been done to all of her major organs—especially her liver, kidneys, and brain. He told us there was no treatment or cure and that most children with the syndrome live less than six months.

A few days later, when we took her home from the hospital, we knew we were taking her home to die. The 199 days that she was with us were rich in many ways. We did the best we could to pack as much living and loving in those days as we could. And then we said good-bye.

Initially, in those days after she died, I felt full and enriched from all we had experienced with her and wise from all we had learned in our experience with her. But that faded quickly. A load of sadness settled in that felt like a boulder on my chest so that I was always struggling to catch my breath.

For a child to have this syndrome means that David and I have to be carriers of the recessive gene trait for it, so any child of ours has a 25 percent chance of having the fatal syndrome. So we took surgical steps to prevent another pregnancy. And evidently it didn’t work. A year and a half after Hope died, I discovered I was pregnant. Prenatal tests revealed this child, a son, also had the fatal syndrome. So we welcomed our son Gabriel in July 2001. He, too, was with us about six months. And there we were again—David; our son, Matt; and me—in a very quiet house, working our way separately but together through sadness.

Over these years since Hope and Gabriel died, I’ve interacted with many grieving people. I’ve listened to grieving people talk about their deep disappointment and ongoing alienation from people around them who just don’t seem to “get it.” But I’ve also heard them speak movingly of the unexpected, often simple things people around them have said or done that demonstrated a deep sensitivity to their pain and a willingness to enter into it with them.

It’s easy to sit with grieving people and swap stories about ridiculous, thoughtless, insensitive things people around them have said and done. Too easy, perhaps. What is much sweeter and certainly more helpful is to talk about what people have said or done that touched them deeply, what was especially meaningful and helped them not feel so alone in the midst of sorrow. So that’s what I asked people to do. I asked them, via an online survey posted on various websites, to tell me what others said or did for them that was especially helpful or meaningful in the midst of grief. I asked them what they wish those around them had understood about their grief. I heard from people of all ages and situations who have experienced all kinds of losses. And I’ve incorporated what these grieving people told me throughout this book.

In fact, I’ve just got to share a few things people told me here at the outset so that you’ll have a taste of what’s ahead. If you doubt that you have any power to bring comfort to someone going through unimaginable loss, surely these will convince you otherwise:

When my grandmother passed away from dementia, someone wrote, “I’m so sorry you didn’t get to say good-bye the way you wanted to.” It still brings tears to my eyes that someone said exactly what I didn’t even know how to express.

Emily McKillip, Fort Worth, Texas

Almost a year after our infant son was born dead, a woman at church talked about him, using his name in a conversation, and I almost wept with gratitude! I didn’t realize how much it hurt that everyone tried not to talk about him to protect me from further pain, when really the most pain was from others dodging his existence at every turn.

Lindsey Coffman, Milford, Kansas

In the hospital cafeteria one day with my pastor, I said, “I’m not sure I can hold on to God through this.” He answered, “You can’t hold on to him, but he will hold on to you.” That gave me such comfort—knowing I could just let God hold on to me, and he has.

Judy Joyce, Richmond, Virginia

After my husband died, a friend invited me to stay with her and her husband for a while in a little cottage in their backyard. I had space to be alone when I couldn’t handle social situations, but they were nearby if I needed to talk.

Carol Miller, Waverly, New York

My husband and I were in our doctor’s office waiting room a few months after our thirty-four-year-old son died. An acquaintance whose son had played basketball with our son worked there. She glanced at us from the back of the office and could have easily looked away. Instead, she got up from her desk, walked out and around through several doors, and came up to us. She said, “I am sorry to do this here, but this has to be acknowledged.” She tenderly hugged each of us in the middle of the waiting room. I had some tears, but it touched my soul.

Jan Kelley, Wichita, Kansas

The morning after our son passed, as I rose dreading another day, there was our elderly new neighbor, meticulously sweeping our sidewalk. He never looked up; he just swept and went on his way. I will never forget that singular, anonymous act of kindness.

GriefShare facilitator, Tampa Bay, Florida

My wife and I had tried for about seven years to get pregnant, which was its own monthly agony. Then we got pregnant and announced it to our church friends, and we all rejoiced. Then we miscarried, and we were devastated, as were our friends. The one caring comment that I’ve never forgotten came from a man who never talked much. He looked me right in the eye, with tears in his, and said he knew that some people might try to comfort us with the thought that because the miscarriage happened early, it would hurt less. Then he said, “As soon as you knew you were pregnant, you were in love with that baby.” He said he knew how much we must be hurting, and he was sorry. I’ve never forgotten that brief conversation. I’m tearing up as I write this, more than twenty-five years later.

David J. Myers, Caldwell, Idaho

After our son drowned, a friend called me up and said, “I am going to make us hair appointments for the same time so I can take you.” When she called ahead, she told our hairdresser what had happened so she would not start asking me about the kids.

Rachel Anderson, College Station, Texas

Six months after losing our baby, we went to a wedding. As we were leaving the party, the couple asked if they could leave a bouquet of their wedding flowers on our daughter’s grave. In the midst of their happiest day they remembered our sadness.

Ruth, UK

In the span of three months three of my young friends passed away. The most significant thing someone did for me was to continuously pursue friendship with my tired self. Instead of pitying me from afar, she entered in with compassion. This meant sometimes being able to talk about where I was and how I was coping, but most of the time it meant helping me to see the beauty in life by exploring the city in which we live, going out with girls, trying new coffee shops, etc. Being a friend who drew near in spite of my changing moods and energy levels reminded me that regardless, I was ever loved.

Beth Gowing, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

In my grief I needed to discharge my burden, and I needed someone who was in God’s Word and walking in it. I needed seasoned maturity, a loving heart, and all that comes with it. I knew such a person and told her I needed to talk. She sat outside with me on folding chairs between our parked cars for hours on end as I shared my story and my grief. I spoke in linear fashion; she spoke but little, but when she did, it was right and something I could use. The evening came on, but I was not done. After we took care of some things, we found ourselves at a track. We walked around it again and again as I finished my story. Night fell, my burden discharged.

Anonymous

Simple but incredible stuff, don’t you think? When I read things like this, I wonder why I ever hesitate to speak up or reach out to someone who is grieving. I wonder why I ever let the temporary awkwardness rob me of the joy and satisfaction of blessing someone in such a significant way during such a difficult time. I hope you feel that way too and that you’ll find ideas and encouragement in the pages that follow. I also hope that you will be emboldened to engage instead of avoid the grieving people who are all around you and are waiting for someone to interact with them about the loss of their loved one.

Along with the courage to engage, most of us need some wisdom in regard to what meaningful engagement with grieving people looks and sounds like. So let’s dive in. Let’s explore together what grieving people wish you knew about what really helps and what really hurts.

What to Say (and What Not to Say)

It was just two months after our daughter, Hope, died. My husband, David, and I found ourselves attending two funerals in one day—one for a baby who had died at birth, and another for a child who had died of the same syndrome our daughter had. I was waiting in line to greet the parents at the first funeral, when it hit me: I have no idea what to say. Of all people, I should know what to say to these friends. But I didn’t. I had no great wisdom that would answer the questions, no soothing truth that would take away the hurt.

I stumbled through both encounters and walked away with sympathy for all the people who, over the previous months, had struggled to know what to say to David and me. And I went away with more compassion for those who’d felt so helpless that they’d said nothing at all.

Let’s face it—it’s awkward. We want to say something personal, something meaningful, beautiful, helpful, sensitive. Something that demonstrates that we have a sense of what they’re going through. And what we don’t want is to be that person who says the stupid, insensitive thing.

Over many years now of interacting with grieving people—most of whom emerge from their experience of sorrow bent on setting the world straight on what to say and what not to say to people like themselves—I’ve learned a thing or two that people going through grief wish people understood. I have lots of specific, practical, usable ideas in the pages that follow, but the first and most important thing I have to tell you is this:

It matters less what you say than that you say something.

I remember well what a friend who had lost a child told me shortly before Hope died. “It wasn’t so much what people said that hurt,” she said. “What hurt was when people said nothing at all.” All too soon I discovered what she meant; the silence that seemed to scream that my daughter’s life didn’t even merit a mention. And, oh, how it hurt.

My husband discovered it too on his first day back to work after Hope died. A man came into his office talking a mile a minute but didn’t acknowledge our loss at all. David knew he knew. Maybe he thought David wouldn’t want to talk about it. Maybe he didn’t know how to bring it up. Maybe he thought the office was not the place for it. Most likely he just felt awkward and unsure of what to say, and so he just said nothing. Whatever it was, it hurt.

I also remember well, however, that humbling day when I realized how often I had been that person—that person who said nothing about the loss of a loved one to someone stinging with grief. I saw my friend Susan, whose mother had died. I remembered how I had neglected to say anything early on, assuming that since so many other people were speaking to her about her loss, surely she wouldn’t notice if I didn’t.

What I didn’t understand at the time is that when you’re grieving, you know who has acknowledged it in some way and who hasn’t. You just do.

Saying something about it tells me that you know that it’s there, and you care that it’s there, and you care about me. Not mentioning it, for whatever reason, makes me feel less cared for by you. In fact, because you choose not to say anything about it, because you choose not to acknowledge it, I find myself doubting whether you care about me at all, because this is the very hardest, biggest thing in my life. If you don’t acknowledge it, much less enter into it with me, it puts a huge distance between us.

If I were going through some big happy life change—going to college, or getting married, or having a baby—it would be very strange if you kept refusing to acknowledge it or never wanted to hear anything about it. This grief and loss that I am experiencing are no less life changing.

I don’t expect you to know what to say. I’m not asking you to have the answers. In fact, rather than sitting there worrying about what you should say to me, it would be incredible if you would just invite me to share with you. I would feel so loved. But when you don’t ask, when you don’t bring up this grief, when you so clearly feel uncomfortable with anything vaguely relating to my pain, it makes me feel that my grief is too much for you, that you’re not willing to enter into it with me in even the smallest way, and that hurts tremendously.

Jamie Lorenz, Spokane Valley, Washington

Last night I was talking with a friend who was trying to figure out if and how to reach out to someone she hasn’t talked to for years who just lost her thirty-five-year-old son. I explained to her that when someone you love has died, it is as if a hurdle has been placed between you and every person you know, and that hurdle stays in place until your loss has been acknowledged in some way. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture or a long conversation. Sometimes a simple, “I know what has happened and I’m so sorry,” or even a nonverbal hand on the shoulder or squeeze of the hand will knock down that barrier.

A few months after our daughter died, I was in the carpool line waiting to pick up my son from school, when another mom, who had a daughter born a short time before Hope, came up to my car. She told me that she felt awkward every time she saw me because she still had her daughter while mine was gone, and that she didn’t how to get past that awkwardness. “You just did,” I told her. Simply acknowledging that the barrier was there knocked it down.

Don’t hesitate to approach someone because you think it has been too long since his or her loved one died so that they’ve probably moved on and wouldn’t want to talk about it anymore. The reality is more likely to be the opposite. If it has been a while, it is likely that people have stopped talking about the deceased one, but the grieving one’s desire to talk about him or her has only increased. So bring it up. And keep bringing it up over the coming months and even years. That is a gift a true friend gives someone who is grieving.

We love to talk about Savannah, and nothing could be said that would hurt us any more than we were hurting. It actually hurt more when someone didn’t say something. Especially when those someones were family members. I think that our presence at family events, just the five of us instead of six, stirred up their grief, and they didn’t know what to say or do. It was easier to just stay away, which I interpreted at the time as them not caring or loving Savannah.

Jennifer, Louisiana

I think women do a great job at surrounding one another, encouraging one another, creating a support network. But men, not so much. I can remember one particular Sunday when I stayed home and Peter came home to tell me how many of my friends had asked how I was doing. He was happy about the support I received but crushed that they hadn’t acknowledged his grief too. So don’t forget that men grieve too.

Sarah Damaska, North Branch, Michigan

The second thing I have to tell you about your desire to know what to say, before we dive into ideas about what to say, is this: even if you come up with the perfect thing to say (as if there is such a thing), it simply won’t fix the hurt or solve the problem of the people who are grieving.

Does that take some pressure off? I hope so. Really, there is nothing you can say that will make their loss hurt less. It’s going to hurt for a while. They’re not looking to you to make sense of it or to say something they haven’t thought of or something that makes it not hurt. Your purpose in saying something is to enter into the hurt with them and let them know they are not alone.

It’s not up to you to say something that answers the significant questions they are asking. Those take some time to work through, and if they sense your willingness to linger with them a bit in the midst of the questions rather than offer simplistic answers, they’re more likely to want to explore them with you down the road. It’s not up to you to recommend the book they need to read, the counselor they need to see, the drug they need to take. You don’t have to provide for them a recommended framework for thinking and feeling their way through their loss. Really, you just have to show up and say very little except maybe—and forgive me if this offends you, but I just don’t know a better way to express it—“This sucks.”

An older lady from our church sat me and my brothers down and tried to prepare us for returning to school after the sudden death of our father. She said, “Death sucks!” I was shocked to hear that word come out of an adult woman and a Christian at that. But she said there is no other way to express what we were going through other than that it sucked! It was so helpful and funny to hear someone use a strong word to express the horrible situation we were in.

Jordan, Washington

It’s not up to you to make the pain go away, even though you would love to be able to do so. Grieving people are not expecting you to make the pain go away. They’re really just hoping that you will be willing to hurt with them. That’s what makes a great friend in the midst of grief! He or she comes alongside and is willing, at least for a while, to agree that this is terrible, unexplainable, the worst. No forced looking on the bright side. At least not yet. No suggesting you should be grateful for anything. At least not yet. To have a friend who, with a shake of the head and a sense of “How can this be?” refuses to rush too quickly past sharing a sense of agonized disappointment at the reality of death—what a gift.

A couple came who had lost a son. The wife looked at me at one point and said, “Someday this will be okay. Not today. Not tomorrow. But someday, it will be okay.” I hung on to that. It had to be someone who had experienced this level of grief, though, in order for me to believe it.

Sharon Smith, Muncie, Indiana

So how do you begin to formulate what you might say when the time comes? It depends.

It depends on the nature of your relationship with the person. What we say to a business colleague will be different from what we say to a close, personal friend or family member.

It depends on where that person is in the process of grief. What we say on the day a loved one has died, or when we greet someone at the visitation, is likely different from what we might say a few weeks, a few months, or even a few years later.

Grieving people are as different from each other as—well, as different from each other as people are different from each other. What is helpful and meaningful to one person may be unwanted or even annoying to another. Words welcomed by one grieving person may be offensive to another. There are no one-size-fits-all words or deeds. There are just lots of hurting people who feel sad and lonely and are desperate to know that there are people around them who are willing to get outside of themselves to enter into their sorrow in a meaningful way.

Let’s begin with the basics.

Let the Grieving Person Take the Lead

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