Reading this book makes me want to take back almost everything I have said to someone who was suffering the pain of grief, but it is a regret worth experiencing in order to be better equipped for the next opportunity to speak into somebody’s sorrow.
This book is loaded with practical suggestions for what to say and what not to say, and what to do and what not to do when someone is grieving. Sometimes the task seems impossible – on the one hand, the most important thing is that we say something, rather than nothing (p.20); and on the other hand, it is very possible that what we say will hurt rather than help (all of chapter 2). So yeah, you might say the wrong thing, but entering into a person’s sorrow is much more important than looking the other way.
Many of the suggestions here are fairly self evident: don’t give people advice and direction in their suffering — it just puts pressure on them that they can’t bear; even biblical directions can make the grieving person feel spiritually inadequate in the moment; sometimes we back away thinking that grieving people don’t want to talk about their deceased loved one, when in fact the opposite is true; and all of us have said it – “let me know if you need anything” – but “what they really need is for you to figure out what they need and either ask if you can do it with them or for them, or just show up and take care of it.” (p.71).
Again, it’s not easy, but we can’t afford to remain aloof. Guthrie helps us know how to do or say something simple that might be remembered forever.
Book Review: "What Grieving People Wish You Knew," Nancy Guthrie