When you don’t know what else to say

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…

~ Isaiah 53:4

I am in the midst of a community that is grieving today. If you know me well, you likely know the story and of whom I speak. So I won’t presume to compound their grief by sharing the details here.

For all the horrors that Facebook can be, in the past few hours and days, it has been a place of community where we have united in prayer and concern. Last night was as if it were almost a vigil of sorts. Then the news came.

Today it is a community grieving together.

And, together, we struggle with the right words to say. What can we say to make things better? What can we do to ease the pain?

In reality, nothing. All we can really do is to say “I care.”

Yes, there are tangible things that can be done. Meals. Errands. Supplies. Cards.

Those can and must be done. In their own way they say “we care” and are important for easing the transition. But they cannot erase the grief.

We are not promised a life without grief or pain. What we are promised is the hope of a future. A future that looks like this:

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.

~ Revelation 21:4

Our friend knows this reality now. Those of us left behind to grieve know it as our hope.

But in that time of pain and sorrow, when the words just won’t come, there is a name above all names. That name is Jesus.

When we don’t know what else to say, we can say the name. He knows our heart’s cry.

When you don’t know what else to say

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