What I Wish the Church Knew about Grief

Standing on the other side of a difficult chapter of life, I’m grateful to have made it through. Yet, I realize I will never be the same. I have looked into the face of death while caring for beloved family members in the final chapters of their lives. I’ve witnessed long and complicated illnesses that required the stamina worthy of a marathon for both the dying and those who courageously loved to the end.

These experiences etched deep crevices of pain into my heart—the kind only God can heal. Along the journey of healing, I stumbled into the “wrestling tent” of uncertainty. Here I unpacked my questions, regrets, and grief—only to find a gentle and compassionate God. Even in the throes of my pain, he never gave up on me but loved me and brought healing to my soul. My faith is much deeper now, but as I limp away from the tent, I have no platitudes to offer to grieving friends. Instead I have learned to offer time to listen and cry with those who are weeping.

As I reflect on my faith journey, especially the recent intersection with grief, I recognize that some would call those years a crisis of faith or the dark night of the soul. It’s true that during that time I could not shake the feeling of a heavy blanket on my soul. I was confused about life and the paradox of God’s goodness in the midst of suffering. My foggy mind and achy, tired physical body were all symptoms of grief and dare I say—a traumatic response to intense suffering. Often, we associate grief only with death, but it is much broader than that. Grief is the necessary process of healing for any significant loss in life.

I knew I needed help. There seemed to be a deep chasm between the God I knew from years of Bible study and the seemingly unanswered prayers and silence of God at a time when I desperately needed hope and peace. I continued to serve in leadership in my church and other ministries yet felt I was dying on the inside. My feeble attempts to share my deep sorrow and faith crisis were usually met with a blank stare, a Bible verse, or an awkward change of topic. I quickly learned the church was not a safe place for me to honestly share the turmoil of my soul. And if not church, then where? I began to meet with a spiritual director who offered me a safe place to process, question, and listen for God to speak into my pain and distress.

Every church has a unique culture and community formed by denominational standards, theological doctrine, and leadership. Adding in a layer of regional norms also affects the culture and dialogue regarding loss within individual churches. Although there are exceptions, most churches struggle to know how to talk about grief, despite the fact that loss will affect every member in the congregation at some point. Oftentimes the default response is to refer them to a program offered on occasion or outside counseling. These certainly are good and needed options, but let’s fill the gap with conversations about these inevitable life events and their accompanying emotions. We need to normalize these discussions within the church.

I also have struggled to know what to say or what to do when someone in my congregation has experienced a significant loss of some kind: divorce, conflict within families, job loss, moves and loss of community, serious illness, and death. I remember dreading seeing a staff member of our church after their child died suddenly. Do I bring it up? If so, what do I say? I dropped off a meal and a card—but then what? I was at a loss to know how to be present and listen. I didn’t know how to come alongside for the journey, which often is long with twists and turns.

I know I am not alone in this awkward and uncomfortable response to not only the grief journey of others but also my own. I did not know how to process what I was feeling and experiencing. My head and heart seemed detached from each other.

Here are my suggestions for equipping church leadership and congregations on how to enter into grief and trauma conversations:

1. Teach and model the biblical texts and practices of lament. After all, lament is modeled for us in the book of Lamentations and in a third of the Psalms. Thus, lament is an effective biblical tool.

2. Communicate the importance of loving God with our whole being—including the heart and our emotions, as varied as they are. Seek to understand and express our emotions, even the uncomfortable ones. Like David pouring out his heart in Psalms, God can handle what he already knows about us.

3. Teach from the pulpit, Bible studies, and small group curriculum that joy and sorrow co-exist in our lives—both are normal and in Scripture. The two are not mutually exclusive. Sorrow does not need to be ignored or hidden (John 16:20–22; Heb. 12:2).

4. Remove the stigma surrounding sadness, anger, regret, shame, and guilt. All are common emotions throughout life and are well documented in the Bible. Where better to understand them than in the context of Scripture and wise biblical counsel? The process of talking about the experiences and identifying the emotions is an important first step in healing.

5. Offer training and support for the church leadership to take time for their inner healing. Lead by example.

Excellent support programs exist for churches to implement and promote these discussions. Training staff and lay leaders to lead the groups and shepherd participants is an important step in the right direction. Normalizing conversations around grief and trauma welcomes the participant into an authentic church body that is restorative and hopeful.

Let’s make church a “go-to” place when sorrow and sea billows roll, rather than a place to avoid when we feel broken and our faith doesn’t seem relevant to life events. Facades of “fine” and “okay” are not helpful when our interior world is crumbling apart. Thus, my prayer for the local church is that it may be a place that is safe to come as you are—not just as a motto but in practice.