Job 2:13 “Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights. No one said a word to Job, for they saw his suffering was too great for words.”
In the Jewish tradition, people who would come to comfort others after loss, would not speak until the mourner spoke. Oh, how so many people want to fix us when we are in grief. Don’t you just want to hold up your hand and without saying a word, let them know there is no fixing the pain of loss. What has happened when we have experienced the death of our child is the very thing we dreaded most in life. It is what kept us up at night. When others come in and offer their advice, and they have not known this pain, it is better to sit and to sit quietly. Eliphaz, Job’s miserable comforter, asked Job, “What do you know that we don’t? What do you understand that we do not?” There are so many important lessons we learn in walking through this journey of grief.
Do you have people in your life who you would call a miserable comforter? They can add even more pain to our loss. They cannot understand the depth of this pain because they can’t know. The only way to taste this pain is to walk through this loss. It is best to protect yourself from miserable comforters. Keep them in your prayers that they never have to walk through this. They can’t fix us. Forever there is a piece of our heart that has been changed. Grief is a walk one has to do walking their own journey. The fixing or healing will come slowly, but it will always be with us. The finishing of it will come when the Lord Jesus once again says, “It is finished,” as we enter those beautiful pearly gates.
Lord, one lesson may we learn in grief – not to be a miserable comforter.
– Michele
