Sitting In Sorrow

​A couple of weeks ago, my best friend lost her brother to cancer. It was a short but intense battle. And while there is some relief at knowing he is no longer suffering and is enjoying the glories of Heaven and his Savior, it comes as no surprise that there is still immense grief and pain for his family and friends he has left behind. 

Over the past weeks, my friend and I have had many conversations about loss, grief, and the things people say when they don't know what else to say. It hasn't surprised me how often well-intentioned words—even words that may be theologically true—have landed poorly. Instead of bringing comfort, they sometimes deepen the pain, placing expectations on grieving people before they've had the chance to simply mourn.

“He is in a better place.”
“Everything happens for a reason.” 

“God is teaching you so much through this.”
​“God is sovereign, so this is no mistake.”
“Well, at least . . .” 

I think there is an underlying issue that feeds into our tendency as believers to say things that are meant to be supportive and encouraging but fall short. If we are honest, we are profoundly uncomfortable about sitting with grief for the long haul. We want to relieve it, explain it, redeem it. We feel compelled to assure ourselves that the tragedy serves a purpose, and the story will eventually make sense. 

But too often, our need for resolution becomes a burden we place on the grieving. Someone loses a loved one, gets a difficult diagnosis, experiences a strained or failed relationship, loses a job, or watches a dream fall apart, and almost immediately, we start looking for a way to bring resolution.
A perfect example of this can be seen in the story of Job. Most of us know the story of Job, a man who loves God and whose faith is tested when God allows Satan to take away his home, possessions, family, and even his health. 

For most of the book, Job is interacting with his close friends — Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. When we first meet them in chapter 2, these friends are compassionate and encouraging, silently sitting with Job for a whole week. ​

“Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came . . . to show him sympathy and comfort him. And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. They raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward Heaven. And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.” Job 2:11-13

These three verses provide us with a masterclass in how to sit with someone through grief and loss. These men gave Job their presence. They grieved with him. They didn’t rush to fill the silence with deep truths or overused platitudes. They just sat with him. 

Unfortunately, this masterclass in presence was short-lived.

By chapter 4, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar abandon silence and take up the role of interpreters. Unable to tolerate the mystery of Job's suffering, they begin searching for an explanation. Surely there must be a reason for all of this. Surely there must be a lesson, a cause, a purpose.

Before long, their search for meaning turns into accusations. Convinced that suffering must be the result of wrongdoing, they conclude that Job must be hiding some terrible sin. Rather than comforting him, they become prosecutors, insisting that his pain is evidence of guilt.

And this goes on for twenty-nine chapters!

More than half of the book of Job is devoted not to Job's suffering itself, but to his friends who compound that suffering with misguided explanations, accusations, and attempts to make sense of what God had never asked them to explain.

It's no wonder that Job finally responds, "Miserable comforters are you all!" (Job 16:2).

While there are great lessons we as believers can take away from Job on how to endure times of suffering, loss, and grief, we would also do well to learn from the examples of Job’s friends — both what they got right and what they got very wrong. 

1. Theology is not an instant cure for pain.
   What we believe about God, ourselves, and the world around us is important. God’s Word and the doctrine we hold to are what give life meaning and a foundation for us in both good and bad seasons. However, we should never act as if the precious truths we believe automatically erase the pain of loss, grief, sickness, or hardship. 
   
   Sometimes we as Christians can be guilty of weaponizing the truths of Scripture to ourselves and to others as if to say, “See! God is good so you can’t be sad!” or "You know God's in control, so you need to move on.” As my eight-year-old daughter would say — that’s nuts. 
   
   The fact that God is good does not mean we don't hurt. The fact that God is sovereign does not mean we don't grieve. The truths of God’s Word are unshakable. But Scripture never suggests that believing them should make us emotionally numb. God doesn’t want us to be controlled by our emotions, but that does not mean we are not allowed to feel them. 
   
   We have the example of Jesus to show us this. When He came to the tomb of his friend Lazarus in John 11, He already knew his friend had died. He knew He was going to bring him back to life. He fully knew the divine purposes of this entire circumstance. But what does He take time to do? He grieves. 
   
   He wept in solidarity with Mary and Martha, whom He loved. 
   He wept for the devastating effects of sin and death on His creation. 
   He wept in frustration at the lack of faith that was present. 
   
   No one has ever had a clearer understanding of God's purposes than Jesus, and yet He still made room for grief. Knowing the outcome did not prevent Him from mourning the pain of the moment.
   
   Jesus shows us that trusting God and grieving deeply are not contradictions. We can let ourselves and others grieve without rushing to cover the wound with theology. This doesn't mean we should avoid exhorting one another with the truths of Scripture. We desperately need those truths, especially in seasons of grief and suffering. But how and when we offer them matters just as much as the truths themselves.
   
   
2. It is not our job to find the purpose. 
   When Job's friends first arrived, they saw the depth of his suffering and sat beside him in silence for seven days. Unfortunately, like many of us they could not bear to leave the suffering unexplained.
   
   When someone we love is grieving, we naturally want to help. We want to offer comfort and point them toward hope. So, we search for the lesson in the loss. We look for the hidden blessing. We try to explain what God might be doing through the pain. Before the wound has even had time to bleed, we begin searching for its purpose.
   
   We want the story to make sense. We want to believe there is a reason. We want to reassure ourselves that God is at work.
   
   And He is. But that does not mean every season of grief needs to be immediately interpreted. Additionally, we are so limited in our scope of understanding that interpreting the divine and holy purposes of God, at any point, is at best a fruitless endeavor. It’s not our job. 
   
   What God has called us to as His church is to weep with those who weep. It is so easy to rush toward explanations when what is needed most is presence. What our brothers and sisters in Christ need, especially in the initial weeks and months of grief, is for us to say, “I don’t know why this has happened, but I love you. And I know God loves you, even if He feels far away right now. I want to sit with you in this season and be a messenger of God’s love for you.” Then go and do it. 
   ​
3. Be comfortable with the uncomfortable. 
   This is the hardest part, and the one Job’s friends got right at the start. Those seven silent days may have been the most loving thing they did. No speeches. No theories. No attempts to explain what God was doing. Just sitting with their friend in his sorrow. All the trouble began when they started talking.
   
   Unable to accept the mystery of Job's suffering, they searched for reasons. They defended God. They analyzed Job's circumstances. They became convinced that there must be a lesson to learn, a sin to confess, or a cause to uncover.
   
   Yet at the end of the story, God strongly rebukes Job's friends for this. 
   
   We long for justice. We long for healing. We long to see what is broken restored and what is wrong made right. We struggle to live in the tension of unanswered questions and the dissonance of pain. We want things to make sense. We want closure. We want resolution.
   
   But what we're really longing for is Heaven.
   
   C.S. Lewis said it best when he wrote,
   ​“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” --Mere Christianity
   
   I think that's why suffering feels so deeply out of place to us. We were not created for death, loss, grief, and heartache. We were created for unhindered fellowship with God. We were made for a world untouched by sin—a world where joy is complete, love is unbroken, and God's presence is fully known. Deep down, that is the reality our hearts are longing for.
   
   The discomfort we feel in the face of suffering is a reminder that this world is not as it should be. Every funeral, every diagnosis, every shattered dream bears witness to the effects of sin in a fallen creation. Grief feels unnatural because, in many ways, it is. It is a painful reminder that we are living outside of Eden, waiting for the day when Christ makes all things new.
   
   ​Yet until that day comes, suffering remains a part of life in this broken world. We cannot avoid it. We cannot explain it all away. And we cannot always rush through it.

So when we find ourselves walking through seasons of pain—or walking alongside someone who is—we must learn to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. We must resist the urge to escape the tension too quickly. Real love is willing to stay when the answers are slow in coming.

If we want to faithfully care for those who are grieving, we must be willing to settle into the discomfort for the long haul. We must exercise patience when it feels the grief has lingered too long. We must learn to sit with unanswered questions, unhealed wounds, and lingering sorrow without feeling compelled to fix them. 

After all, that is how God ministers to us. He does not always immediately remove our suffering, but He promises His presence within it. And as His people, we have the privilege of offering that same ministry of presence to one another—sitting shoulder to shoulder in the darkness, waiting together for the dawn.

In all our pains, griefs, and losses, God is there. There may come a day when we can look back and see how God was at work. There may come a day when meaning emerges from what now feels senseless. But that day does not need to arrive before we allow ourselves—or others—to mourn. 
​
Jesus Himself shows us this. He wept with those who wept. The One who understood the meaning of every moment most completely was also the One who entered most fully into its sorrow.

May we learn from Him.

​May we become people who are not afraid of tears, unanswered questions, or long seasons of grief. Let us resist the urge to rush suffering toward a conclusion.

​And may we learn to sit quietly with one another in the places where understanding has not yet come, trusting that sometimes the greatest ministry we can offer is simply our presence.
​
Dear Father, teach us to love others the way You love us. Give us the wisdom to know when to speak and the humility to remain silent. Help us resist the urge to explain every sorrow and instead become people who faithfully bear one another's burdens. Make us quick to listen, slow to speak, and willing to sit beside those who hurt. When we ourselves are grieving, remind us that You welcome our tears, our questions, and our lament. And remind us that one day, the joy will come! Through Christ, our compassionate Savior, amen.

What if the most Christlike response to someone’s suffering isn’t having the right words—but being willing to sit with them in silence, without needing to explain their pain?