Have you ever heard someone use a phrase that immediately made you think of a song? It happened to me the other day in church.

The pastor was reading from the book of Ecclesiastes. The instant he began with the words, for everything there is a season, I began singing along with the Byrds in my head:
    
To everything, turn, turn, turn.
There is a season, turn, turn, turn.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born, a time to die.
A time to plant, a time to reap.
A time to kill, a time to heal.
A time to laugh, a time to weep.

Apparently the original lyrics were not written by Pete Seeger, but Solomon. And wise, old Solomon shares in Ecclesiastes 3 that there are not just times for everything, there are seasons. That suggests that whether we plant or reap or laugh or weep, it is not just for a brief moment of time, but for a season. When it comes to weeping in particular, that is important for us to remember.

Even in the Christian culture, there is a lot of misunderstanding about grieving. Perhaps one of the more common misconceptions--and one that causes undue and untold pressure on those who experience loss--is that we are to grieve for as little time as possible, then move on with our lives. Solomon debunks that bunk. He reminds us that grieving is a season of life.

In our part of the world the year is divided up into four seasons, each lasting three months. But in Solomon's neck of the woods, there were two seasons--summer and winter. So when Solomon writes about a season to weep, it was with the understanding that grief can be a very long process; it can and should take a significant amount of time.

A second misunderstanding about grief has to do with the very definition of the word. Grief is not merely "intense, mental anguish." It is the "expression of intense, mental anguish." That is an important distinction because if we are not expressing our anguish we are not grieving. For us to truly grieve, those intense and, I must add, very normal feelings need to come out.

So what do we need to do when faced with the heartache of loss in our lives? I offer two suggestions.

First, remember that grieving is a season. When we put time limits on when we should be done with grieving and  "return to normal" we are short-circuiting the process.  The truth of the matter is we will never return to "normal." Nor should we. We have lost something that was profoundly meaningful to us.

A woman once shared with me how she was crying one morning, grieving the loss of her mother, when the phone rang. The person calling could tell by her voice that something was wrong and asked her what was going on. In a moment of vulnerability, she shared that she was just missing her mom. Her "friend" responded, "Come on. That happened two weeks ago!"

Whether is was two weeks, two months, or two years, such statements are not only minimizing, they are hurtful. They are also the reason why many people grieve alone. We must grant grief the time it needs.

A second and crucial step in the grieving process is to find a safe place where you can express what you honestly feel. And be warned: gut-wrenchingly honest grief may include weeping, wailing, questioning, and cussing. If someone truly wants to be of help, they will allow us to let our anguish out no matter what form it takes.

Anger is a more common part of the grieving process than most good Christians would ever admit. It, too, must be expressed if it is a part of our anguish. It is not only okay, it is normal to hate cancer, to be furious over suicide, even to be ticked off at God for allowing death to happen.

Name your feeling. Own it. Express it. We cannot work through our feelings if deny their existence.   

We must remember that unexpressed anguish doesn't simply dissipate over time. It will come out one way or another. It may take the form of resentment or depression or isolation or cynicism. But it will come out. It is important that it come out in healthy ways that honor God. We must seek friends or a good counselor who will help us to feel what we really feel, without judgement.

Expressing intense, mental anguish is not a bad thing. In fact, it is the key to our healing. We grieve deeply when we love deeply. We become stronger through seasons of weeping when we recognize that A., they are seasons and B., they require weeping.

This is a guest post by my daughter, Traci Meeder. Traci and her husband, Eric, live in North Carolina where Traci is an elementary school teacher and Eric serves in the Marines.

Stare. It’s what I do when I’ve sobbed every tear I can muster. I’m too exhausted to cry and too worked up to sleep. So I stare. And I wonder what I could have done differently, what I should have done differently. I wonder if there’s something wrong with me, and then worry that it will happen again. That’s when panic strikes and I can’t breathe. I can’t let my mind go there. I can’t think about the possibility of losing another baby. I’ve already lost two in the last six months.

Miscarriage. I have a hard time saying it out loud. Typing seems easier because there’s no one here to give me pitying glances. So here I am. Typing about my loss because I need to talk about it, but I can’t in real life yet.

We found out just before Thanksgiving that we were going to have our first baby. It seemed fitting at the time to celebrate a pregnancy in a season of thankfulness. That’s how we felt. Thankful. We wanted to start a family. I have several friends who struggle with infertility, so I know it’s quite common for pregnancy to take a long time. But it didn’t for us. We got pregnant right away. For that, we felt thankful.

We told our families at Christmas. This was going to be Eric’s parents’ first grandchild and my parents’ third. There was much celebrating and talks of baby names and baby showers. The family was already making plans to visit at the end of July after the baby was born. There was morning sickness, headaches, and very small bump beginning to form. It was all starting to feel very real. We were going to be parents.

It was the next week that I had the ultrasound. The tech was silent as she maneuvered the device and took pictures. She didn’t even look at us. I could already see on the screen that there was nothing there. We were ushered into the waiting room, then into an examination room where we waited for over an over for a doctor to confirm what we already knew: there was no baby.

I’d had what’s called a blighted ovum. The embryo implants in the uterus but never becomes a fetus. By that time, the body is already in pregnancy-mode and continues to produce pregnancy symptoms. It’s sometimes called a “missed miscarriage” because women typically don’t have symptoms of miscarriage until long after the baby has passed. That’s exactly what happened to me. I had no reason to believe there was anything wrong with my pregnancy. That is, until the silent ultrasound. I was thirteen weeks at that point and fourteen weeks when I finally had to get a D&C.

Eric and I decided we’d try again after his training in April. That would give us time to grieve and give my body time to heal. My sister in law asked if I felt ready emotionally. I told her I didn’t think I’d ever feel ready emotionally. Getting pregnant again doesn’t undo the pain of losing a child. I knew I’d be more scared, more cautious, more anxious the second time around. But I also knew we were ready to be parents.

Again, we got pregnant right away. We were so excited and so relieved, but we didn’t want to get our hopes up. It was still very early. We decided not to tell any family until after I’d been to the doctor and had an ultrasound.

I had blood work done on Saturday and again on Monday. When you’re pregnant, your hormone levels double or triple every couple of days. My levels dropped 75%. I have a doctor appointment today at one, but I already know what he’s going to tell me. I’ve lost another child.

He’ll probably tell me it’s not my fault, that I’m perfectly healthy and there’s nothing I could have done differently. But I won’t believe him because this has happened twice now. It’s happened twice and I can’t accept him telling me that everything is okay, that I’m okay. Because I’m not.

The pain is fresh and washes over me, leaving me gasping for air and grasping at hope that appears just out of reach. It comes in waves that I never see coming. Sometimes it’s a song or a sermon. Sometimes it’s a baby or a pregnant belly. Sometimes it’s my husband. I look at him and know he will be the best dad in the world. He has a big smile and an even bigger heart. He is filled with such love, kindness, patience and an affinity for Legos. He should get to be a dad. He’s meant to be a dad.

I know God is here, but I’m not ready to pray just yet. My only question is “Why?” and there is no answer. So I cry until I can’t cry anymore and trust that God is crying with me. He’ll be there when I’m ready to talk.

I know there are thousands of women who have been in my shoes. Honestly, that doesn’t make me feel any less alone. It doesn’t make my heart ache less or calm the knots in my stomach. It doesn’t help me sleep better or cry less or hope more. This is my grief and I don’t know what to do with it.

So I stare.

And I wonder when it is I’ll breathe again.

Pray for me. Pray for others who can’t pray for themselves just yet.

Q.: How long does the grieving process last?

A.: Forever. We never "get over" losing someone we loved. With God's help, we can begin to heal over time. But we are never the same. Nor should we be the same when we lose someone who mattered deeply. To move forward in the process we must give ourselves some grace. We must let the tears flow. And we must understand that our Heavenly Father grieves with us. Death was never a part of His plan.

There are times when words elude us. A good friend gets a cancer diagnosis ending with the words, "There's nothing we can do." Someone we have always enjoyed being around is ravaged by a deep and inexplicable depression. The couple you and your spouse have been in a small group with, have vacationed with, have long considered your closest friends, have announced, out of the blue, that they are getting a divorce.

What do we say when we don't know what to say? How do we genuinely show care to those we love when they  are going through distressing times?

Many of us feel an unwarranted obligation to "fix" the problem. We suggest new doctors and treatments. We offer pep talks. We recommend counselors, books, and sermon tapes. We try our best to keep them from feeling emotions that we perceive as negative.

Some, in response to those who are hurting, resort to speaking fluent "Christianese." We seek to solve their sorrow with spiritual soundbites: 

• You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.
  
• God is good all the time.
  
• With God all things are possible.
• When God closes a door He opens a window.
  
• All things work together for good.

And, the ever popular:

• I'll pray for you.

While those going through painful trials may believe all those words to be true, their traumatized spirits may not be ready to hear them.

So what is a helpful response when people we love are facing soul-wrenching trials? Many times the most helpful, meaningful thing we can say is... nothing. 

Hurting friends don't need our words, they need us. By their side. Holding them up. Attuned to their anguish. Receiving their feelings. Listening to their pain. Sharing their tears.

People going through painful circumstances often don't recall the words that were spoken to them. But they forever remember who was there for them.

The story is told of a six-year-old boy whose playmate, a little neighborhood girl, was killed in a car accident. Several days after, the boy's mother was in the kitchen when he came in the back door. She asked where he had been. He told her he had gone to the girl's house to see her mother. Taken aback, his mom asked, "What did you say to her?"

The boy shrugged and said, "Nothin'. I just sat in her lap and helped her cry."

When people experience loss--whether the loss of a loved one, the loss of their health, the loss of their marriage--they will more than likely encounter a number of people who will express their sympathy. But people who are grieving need more than sympathy. They need empathy. 

Sympathy acknowledges a person's pain. Empathy enters into it. Sympathy expresses. Empathy encircles.

When we find ourselves in situations where we don't know what to say, perhaps that's God's way of telling us to say nothing.  Our presence may speak louder than words ever could.

Within the past few days, two of my friends, both around my age, have had their worlds turned upside down. One received a phone call that her adult son had taken his own life. The other was informed that his grown daughter had been raped by home intruders as the woman's children slept upstairs.

Some might think the appropriate Christian response for a friend's hearing this news would be compassion, sadness, and sympathy. Having been a Christian my entire life, having worked at a Christian counseling agency, having served as a pastor in the Christian church, perhaps such tragedies should readily bring to my mind and mouth hope-filled, spiritual soundbites like:

•  All things work together for good.
  
•  It's all part of God's plan.
  
•  God is good all the time. 

My initial reaction was far from "spiritual." I was angry. In fact, I'm still angry. I am angry at the results of sin. I am angry at the evil that is so prevalent in our world. I am angry that people I care about have to be subjected to such heartrending pain. And my anger can't begin to compare to the anger my friends must feel.

Anger is an unpleasant emotion. We don't like to feel it. We don't like to be around other people who feel it. Yet, it is a common, yet often overlooked component of the grieving process, whether morning the loss of a job, a marriage, an ideal, or someone we loved deeply. 

If we are truly going to help others grieve, we must allow them to feel what they feel, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us. We must help them to release and process their very natural feelings of anger.

Those of us who are Christians, though, often do our hurting friends a disservice by short-circuiting the process. Rather than acknowledging the dark cloud, we point out the silver lining. Rather than meeting people in their depth of their pain we try to pacify them with words of hope that they are not ready to hear. We can't stand to see them in the valley so we try to drag them up to the mountaintop. We quote cheery Bible verses. We tell them, "I'm praying for you." We share stories of others who had the faith to overcame similar situations.

Don't get me wrong, Bible reading, prayer, and faith can bring healing to our souls like nothing else can. But our souls must first be in a position to accept that healing.

I went to the wake of a friend who died unexpectedly while on a business trip. He was a friend of many, as evidenced by the long line of people gathered to pay their respects. When I finally reached his grieving widow, I hugged her, pulled her ear next to my mouth, and whispered words that she later told me were more comforting than anything else she had heard that day. I simply said, "This sucks." 

When weeks later she reflected on those dreadful days immediately after her husband's death, she said, "If I had heard one more person tell me about 'the peace that passes understanding' I would have screamed." She was well aware that Jesus offers such peace. And she did, in fact, experience that peace as time went on. But until she had worked through her anger, peace had no chance.

Do you truly want to help others who are going through traumatic times? Don't deny them the right to be angry. Don't try to diffuse their anger. Don't minimize it or, worse yet, tell them they shouldn't feel that way. Tap into it. Let them sob. Let them scream. Let them curse if they need to. It is only when the cloud of anger dissipates that we can see and feel the rays of peace that will bring healing to our souls. 

(Excerpt from my book, When Father is a Bad Word ) 

Without minimizing the pain a child experiences as the result of a father’s death, kids whose fathers walk out on their families often suffer greater emotional distress than kids whose fathers die. Children whose fathers desert the family must live every day with the knowledge that their dads have chosen to leave them. 

It is not an overstatement to say that this thought has the potential to infiltrate every relationship the child will ever have. It is especially poisonous—and sometimes fatal—to their relationship with their Heavenly Father.

Another factor that rachets up the emotional distress level in the lives of children whose fathers have bailed on their families is that it is significantly more difficult for those left behind to achieve closure. There is a finality in death that cannot be realized in the case of desertion. I witnessed this in living color in the life of my friend, Don.

Don was wounded enough when his father, without warning and after 30 years of marriage to his mother, up and left the family. But Don’s dad didn’t leave completely. He stayed within firing range. Months after the divorce he continued to circle around the family taking pot shots at his ex-wife and kids. The bullets of blame found their mark. 

Don tried to fend off the barrage, but his father just kept firing. Don’s dad  would call him at all hours of the day or drop in on him at work to complain about how hard his life was, how Don’s mother was nothing but a witch with a capital “B”, and how Don never appreciated all that he did for him and the family.

His father would then lay low for awhile giving Don the false hope that the battle was over. But just when Don’s wounds began to scab over his father would come out of the brush and rip them off with a new assault of accusations.

For a long time Don just kept his mouth shut and suppressed the hurt, trying to convince himself that even a shaming relationship with his father was better than none at all. But one day he had simply had enough. After being interrupted at work for the umpteenth time by a phone call from his father with allegations so familiar he knew them better than the Pledge of Allegiance, Don was pushed beyond his breaking point. In exasperation he countered with a response that resonates well with anyone who has been engaged in a similar manner with an estranged father.

When his father paused briefly to reload Don blurted, “You know something, Dad? Sometimes I wish you were dead. Then I could be done with you.”

Don’s response to his father provided me with clarity concerning a comment I heard from a woman in a support group I once facilitated. She said, “Divorce is like a death with no body.” 

There is a closure that comes from death that cannot be attained in the case of divorce or desertion. Grieving the loss of a father who died is different than grieving the loss of a father who left by choice, especially when he continually pops up, doing and saying stupid and hurtful things. Whether a father is taken away or walks away, a dad’s abandonment needs to be grieved. 

It's happened to all of us. We've been hurt by loss in our lives and dared to be vulnerable with someone about what we were feeling. But rather than responding with compassion and entering our pain--which is what true empathy does--the person offers us a quick fix: pat words of advice that serve only to minimize our stirred emotions and, in many cases, add guilt to the mix.

Each of us, at one time or another, has been stung by the careless words of others when we were already feeling emotionally overwhelmed due to loss in our lives. Just so we're clear about what is and isn't helpful to say to someone who is going through a difficult time, here is a top ten list of Things You Don't Want to Hear When You're Hurting:

     10. Just put it behind you.
     9.  Pick yourself up by the bootstraps.
     8.  There are a lot of people who are worse off than you.
     7.  Time heals all wounds.
     6.  Worrying about it isn't going to change anything.
     5.  Stay busy so you don't think about it.
     4.  Where is your faith?
     3.  You can't live in the past.
     2.  What you’ve got to do is pray more.
     1. You shouldn’t feel that way.

Throughout my years of ministry, I have heard from countless people whose painful situation was made even worse by the comments of others from their church.

• A woman whose husband, out of the blue, served her with divorce papers was "encouraged" by several church friends, "You'll find someone new."

• A couple who experienced the miscarriage of their child was "comforted" with the words, "It was for the best."
  
• A man whose depression caused him to try to take his own life was advised by his pastor that he needed more faith since depression is, after all, "a spiritual weakness."
  
• A woman whose grandparents were killed in a car accident who was told by several people at the couple's wake, "Wasn't it wonderful they could go together?"
  
• A child whose dad passed away was "consoled" with, "God needed him more than you do."
  

All are comments that served only to cause greater hurt.

It can also be hurtful to tell someone, "I know how you feel" when you don't. Unless you've experienced a miscarriage you can't know what that feels like. If you haven't personally lived with clinical depression you cannot begin to relate to the hopelessness of that situation. Just because your grandfather died doesn't mean you know what it's like to grieve the loss of a spouse. 

The first thing we must understand when we reach out to those who are grieving--whether they're grieving the loss of a loved one, a marriage, a job, their health, their childhood--is that grief cannot be fixed, it needs to be expressed.

When encountering someone who is hurting, it is helpful to ask questions that are open-ended, which allow him or her to express their pain. Questions such as:

• "How are you coping?"
• “What do you find is the most difficult thing about this to deal with?”
• "How can I pray for you?

Such questions invite them to share their pain with you. It is also helpful to say things like:

• “I am so sorry for your loss.”
• ”I want you to know that I care about you.”
• “Please let me know how I can help.

Recently, a friend told me how meaningful he found the words I spoke to him years before at his father's wake. I couldn't recall my profound words of comfort, but, pridefully, I thought they must have been incredibly spiritual to make such an impression. He said, "You hugged me, pulled my head next to your mouth and whispered, 'This really sucks.'" 

Granted, you won't find those words overlaid on a picture of an open Bible on the cover of a sympathy card, but they met a need with my friend. He explained, "I was so sick of people quoting Scripture and telling me they'd pray for me. I needed someone to feel what I felt."
  
While we often struggle to find the words to say to someone who has experienced significant loss, many hurting people will tell you that, often, it is best not to say anything at all. Hold their hands. Hug them. Cry with them. But, most of all, listen to them, We help others through the grieving process only when we allow them to express their pain.