What I'd Say

Visiting with family and friends over the recent Thanksgiving break I spoke often about my challenging job as a hospital chaplain. It's not uncomming during these conversations for someone to ask me, as Ray Charles once said, "What I'd Say."

What do you say when you walk into a room where one has recently died? What do you say when worried parents wait in the trauma bay waiting room? What do you say while standing with someone facing life threatening surgery? What do you say?

I could say, "It's going to be alright," but you know things may never be the same. I could say, "God needed him more than we did," but that offers virtually no comfort to grief. The same goes for, "God needed another flower for his garden." I'd also never say, "He wouldn't come back now if he could," because that just sounds wrong. Silence is always a better option than these.

These are just a few of the phrases of attempted comfort we hear from others offering comfort to grieving and hurting families. At their worst these phrases only do theological damage and cause pain, and at best they fall on deaph ears. Perhaps most often I hear, "This must be part of God's plan." I hate to break it to you, but God did not plan on a drunk driver killing your sister and daughter like that of a woman I sat with some time ago. I don't think God planned that. I do think God's heart breaks with ours.

So, while I won't offer you a feeble attempt to deal with my own anxiety around your grief, I will sit with you. I will hurt with you. I will listen to what she was once like. I'll laugh at his pranks. I will cry with you. I'll carry the burden with you for a while. I will pray when you have not words. I will acknowledge your pain. I won't shrink back. I'll do my best to climb down inside the dark whole of your grief for a time and offer you the only thing I have - myself.

That's what I'd say.