I have been doing a series on the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope weekly podcast of parents in the Bible who had a child die. It has been a fascinating study, seeing these historical events through the eyes of someone who has also had a child die.
What has really amazed me is how much is “hidden” that I have never realized was there in each child’s death, that bereaved parents can either grab ahold of, or let go of, in their grief journey.
The first death in the Bible was Adam and Eve not only having their child die, but it was at the hands of another son! I cannot even begin to imagine what a double whammy that would be like – to have one of my children murder my other child!
I have also shared about the baby of David and Bathsheba’s who died (making King Solomon a “rainbow baby”). Last week I talked about Mary, the mother of Jesus, who was told when Jesus was just an infant that a sword would pierce her soul. (Wow! Can we bereaved parents ever relate to that!!!)
This week I am studying Job, who lost all ten of his children at the same time! Once again, I am amazed to see how much is there that we pareavors can lean into.
One of the things I have seen so clearly with Job’s story, is something I would like to share with you.
Job’s friends started out right. They sat with him for seven days in silence, just being with him in his grief, but then they started to offer him solutions (out of their own ignorance). In fact, by the end, God told three of them to go to Job and offer burnt sacrifices and have Job pray for them. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly (Job 42:7-8 NIV).
Let’s look at a couple of other scriptures.
Romans 12:15 is a pretty familiar one to most of us. Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. Some translations say mourn with those who mourn.
Here is one we aren’t quite as familiar with. Prov. 25:20 states, Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on a wound, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart (NIV). 
Here it is in a different translation. When you sing a song of joy to someone suffering in the deepest grief and heartache, it can be compared to disrobing in the middle of a blizzard or rubbing salt in a wound (TPT).
There is a reason I am sharing these verses with you.
I want to help you know how to truly minister to someone who is grieving a deep loss.
Because we love and care for that person, we want to make them feel better, so we offer our best solution, which usually starts with “At least…”
- At least you still have your other children
- At least you know she’s in a better place
- At least you can be happy for her because she is healed now
- At least you got to have him for 19 years
That doesn’t make us feel better. It’s pouring vinegar (or salt) on our open gaping wound. It is making us feel totally exposed in the freezing cold blizzard of our painful loss.
Saying those kinds of things is like being Job’s comforters. They had never experienced what Job was going through, but for some reason, they decided they had the answers he needed.
Which brings up another thing some people do, thinking it helps the person grieving.
I know how you feel because I lost my ___________.
I get it. We are trying to relate to that person who is in deep grief with our deepest loss. But that just doesn’t help, especially if it isn’t even a similar loss such as, I know how you feel in losing your child because I cried for six months when my grandpa died. (Yes, I have heard that…)
One thing I have noticed is that bereaved parents very rarely tell even another grieving parent, I know how you feel, even if they lost their child the same way. We just seem to understand that our relationship with our child and the depth of the loss is so unique, that I don’t know how you feel about your loss. I know how I felt. I know the darkness I went through and how I didn’t want to live anymore for a while, etc. But that doesn’t mean I know how you feel.
Then there are the statements such as: 
- You are so strong. I couldn’t go through what you are going through. (Say what? That makes it sound like I chose to have this loss. Believe me, I am not strong, just because you see me barely surviving.)
- God needed another angel, so He took your child (spouse, etc.). (Newsflash: God doesn’t kill people on earth to fill an angel roster in heaven. What an awful thought!)
- God says He won’t give us more than we can handle. (That is not in the Bible. There is a verse that says He won’t let us be tempted more than we can bear and will provide a way of escape in 1 Corinthians 10:13. In fact, we are told when life is more than we can handle that He will be our Rock, our Fortress, Our Deliver, Our Anchor, etc.)
Don’t beat yourself up if you have heard yourself say any of those things I have mentioned!
I didn’t know either, until my daughter, Becca, died. It makes me wonder how often I was like Job’s comforters, trying to offer my best solution to something I thought would help the person in deep pain, when I didn’t know what I was talking about.
So, what do I say instead?
Most often, nothing!
Let them know how sorry you are. Give them a hug, and just be with them. You can also look around to see what they need and make sure it gets done.
If you tell them, “Let me know If you need anything,” don’t expect us to contact you. After the death of our child, most of the time we don’t know what we need. If we do know, we aren’t usually going to make the effort to find someone who can help us with whatever it is. It’s just not in us – physically, emotionally, and often even spiritually. We don’t want to be around peppy people who want to try and make us feel better or fix us. We don’t want to be a burden. We are lost, confused, and in so much pain. We just want to know someone cares enough to:
- Weep with us and hold our hand while we weep
- Let us talk about our loss, maybe even go to the cemetery with us
- Bring a meal for our family 2 months later, well beyond the 2-week supply from the church
- Clean our house or do some of the laundry
- Go for a walk with us, not with chatter that drains us, but allow us to feel what we need to feel in the silence
- Share memories and look at pictures with us if we feel compelled to do so
- Take our car and put gas in it for us, or if needed, have the oil changed, put new wiper blades on, etc.
- Bless us by having a quilt made from our child’s T-shirts, or have a 3-D glass picture made from our favorite picture taken with our child, or something uniquely special we can treasure
And most importantly, to allow us to TALK ABOUT OUR CHILD. We are so afraid people will forget about him or her. One of the greatest gifts you can give a parent whose child has died it the gift of talking about their child with them.
You can also gently point them to places that have support and resources specifically for grieving parents. You may not be able to relate to their loss, but there are those who can, and who want to walk with them through the suffocating darkness of child-loss; those who have been in that place and can give them hope that it is possible to get through it to the other side and have hope and light again in their lives.
Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) is one of those places. Some of the resources we have to offer are:
- A weekly podcast
- A weekly YouTube video
- A weekly Word of Hope delivered by email
- A monthly blog
- Several award-winning books, including a coloring book/journal
- A webpage with a free library of downloadable helpful resources
- A monthly Share & Care online fellowship group
Just sent them to gpshope.org where they can poke around and find what is helpful to them.
There is something for you there as well. Just click on the front-page article I Know a Grieving Parent. You will find more there to help you understand some specific things a parent is dealing with after the death of their child, so you can even more effectively be a strength and support to them.
I pray this has been helpful. Thank you so much for wanting to know how to help a devastated parent who has lost their child from this earth. Your loving support means more to us than we will ever be able to put into words.
There are more things than were able to be mentioned in this article. If you would like to receive the PDF of Eight Things to Avoid and Eight Things to Do For a Grieving Parent, just submit your name and email address below. (It will put you on our mailing list to receive updates about GPS Hope and stories about those we are helping, but you can unsubscribe any time you no longer want to receive them.)
Laura Diehl is an award-winning author, 
national speaker and singer. She and her husband, Dave, are the founders of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope). Dave and Laura travel full time in their Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) to be more easily available for speaking and ministry requests.
If you would like to receive monthly updates on their travel adventures click here and submit your name and email at the bottom of the page.
Looking for a speaker for your next event or want more information on hosting a GPS Hope & Healing conference? Click here.
GPS Hope exists to walk with grieving parents through the suffocating darkness of child-loss to a place of hope, light and purpose.
- If you are not a bereaved parent but want to support those who are, or want to follow us as we give hope to these precious parents, please connect with us at Friends of GPS Hope on Facebook.
- If you are a bereaved parent, we encourage you to connect with us on Facebook and subscribe to Laura’s YouTube channel for grieving parents.
Obviously, when we find ourselves in a very dark situation and we can’t see our way out, we need hope.
she will get married someday. That is the wishful thinking kind of hope. But one day a young man comes into her life, they fall deeply in love, and he gets down on one knee with a question and a ring. Her getting married is no longer wishful thinking. It is something she actually starts planning for with anticipation, knowing it is coming. 
nto life.
get you back on the path of living again. Not just surviving, but thriving.
Laura Diehl is an award-winning author, national speaker and singer. She and her husband, Dave, are the founders of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (
putting the death of Becca behind me! She will always be in front of me. Our children are our legacy. They are supposed to keep going when we leave this earth. Even if she isn’t with me anymore, I can’t leave her in my past and go on without her.
The first year of special dates is always difficult for anyone who has lost a loved one, but for a parent who has a child missing it can be almost unbearable. For us, Thanksgiving came first and brought with it the memory of how the year before, Becca had insisted on hosting the family, even though she was wheelchair bound. Then came Christmas, Becca’s favorite holiday, and then the pain of the first time she was not there to celebrate her birthday, and so on. Eventually it came around to the one-year anniversary of her death.
year be harder than the first! I see two reasons for this. First, I braced myself for those one-year markers. I knew they were going to be hard, so I tried to prepare myself for them mentally and emotionally. The second year it was more like I was caught off guard. I’ve been through this before; it should be better this year, I thought, so all of a sudden, those dates were here, and they just hit me like a brick wall.
Grief recovery for a bereaved parent? No, not really. Yes, it is possible to get to the point where we can have memories without the pain. It happens gradually, but for the rest of our lives there will be times where the pain returns, because all we have are the memories of our child. The goal is to have that happen less and less, but it is naïve to think we will get to the point where we no longer feel pain within the memories and therefore have “recovered,” as the article I read suggested.
Everything is now bittersweet, and quite often more bitter than sweet. We want to celebrate the graduations, the weddings and the precious new births and join the family holiday festivities. And we do, in our own way. But each life event is another slap-in-the-face reminder of who isn’t there and should have been. We can’t help but feel the aching emptiness. And being in a happy place surrounded by people who are celebrating, doesn’t necessarily make us feel better like some people tell us it will, but often just compounds the grief and brings it all back.
them to hear their voice. We will never hear them laugh. We will never see their face. We won’t know what they look like two years or ten years or twenty years from now. We will never buy a birthday or Christmas gift for them. We will never hear them say, ”I love you” or be able to give them a hug. EVER… all we have now are memories of who they were…
because I know they aren’t. You see, it becomes our job to make those around us comfortable with our grief. We have to put on our masks and convince those around us that we are okay, because if we don’t, either people don’t want to be around us, or they try to fix us and tell us we should be doing better by now. So we pretend, so they don’t have to grieve with us.
rejoicing with those who rejoice, like Romans 12:15 tells us. But we aren’t very good at the second half of that verse, where we are told to weep with those who weep. (Some versions say to mourn with those who mourn or adds “sharing in their grief.”) And by the way, I notice that God doesn’t tell us to try and fix them if they are mourning for what we think might be too long of a time. He just tells us to join them in their place of sorrow.
I also look for friends who allow me to be who I am now, and not try to hang on to the person I used to be. Unfortunately, there aren’t many out there. Most of them are also bereaved parents who get it.
needs lots of grace. And the best place to safely share and vent your raw and real emotions is to those who have experienced the same blackness, confusion and turmoil. There is no shame, and no judgment on your thoughts or feelings when it comes to other parents who have been right where you are.
has a totally different meaning to it now, and we understand why you don’t want to have a family picture taken or go to a family reunion.
group of people who were a mess like me, for all the reasons listed above and more. They “got it!” I didn’t have to exhaust myself by wearing a mask making them think I was okay, or feel the need to apologize for laughing or crying at any given moment for no apparent reason. It was so very refreshing and healing.
and a new one is released each Tuesday. The Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast is for those who are looking for light in their darkness, and for hope that your life can still have meaning and purpose as you learn to live in a way that honors the life of your child instead of being stuck in the deep grief of his or her death. You can find it several places where podcasts are found. (We hit a snag with iTunes and are hoping it will be there soon, as well.) It is also on our website, along with the show notes. Just go to 
Whether you connect with us here at GPS Hope in some way, or you connect with other groups, the bottom line message is that you are not alone, and there are those of us out here who want to walk with you until you can share that same message of hope with someone else coming along behind you.
