How to Encourage a Grieving Mother
Practical Love
To the mom enduring grief and suffering right now, I would want to say that I'm so very sorry. Honestly, I would want to just sit with her. I wouldn't want to say very much at all. I'd want to weep with her; weep over whatever circumstance in her life has brought her to this place. And then I think I'd want to get up and wash her dishes, fold her laundry, go grocery shopping for her, make her a meal—show her love in whatever practical way that I could.
God Is Still Good
Katie Faris
God Is Still Good invites women to experience God’s comfort and grace through the sorrows of motherhood and leads them to put their hope in Christ, despite the unexpected trials of life.
Eventually, I would want to lead this woman to the man of sorrows who is acquainted with grief, who's familiar with suffering. I would want to lead her to her Good Shepherd who walks with her—walks with us—through our valleys of shadows. I would want to remind her that as painful as her situation is, this isn't the end of her story.
Because of what Jesus did on the cross and the suffering that he took for her, she has hope that one day these tears will be washed away—they will be no more—and that she will see her Savior face to face. Whether or not she ever understands why this happened, she will know him. And she can know him now, too, right in the middle of her sorrow.
Katie Faris is the author of God Is Still Good: Gospel Hope and Comfort for the Unexpected Sorrows of Motherhood.
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