When Grief Has No Easy Words

Thus Ezekiel is unto you a sign.

Ezekiel 24:24

Read Ezekiel 23 and 24. Focus on Ezekiel 24:15 through 27. Some losses arrive before the mind can make a sentence large enough to hold them. You carry out an ordinary task, hear yourself answering a question, and wonder how the day is continuing while something so important has changed. Ezekiel 24 contains one of the book's most painful episodes. God tells the prophet that his wife, described as the delight of his eyes, will die. Ezekiel is instructed not to perform the customary public mourning practices. The account is brief, and its brevity does not make the loss small. His conduct becomes a sign for the exiles concerning the coming destruction of the sanctuary they treasure and the losses their families will suffer. The people ask what his actions mean, and he explains the connection to what is approaching Jerusalem. Chapter 23 has already described the unfaithfulness of Samaria and Jerusalem through severe imagery of betrayal and judgment. Chapter 24 brings the catastrophe into an intensely personal setting. Public disaster cannot be separated from the private lives that will be altered by it. This passage is difficult. We should not pretend to explain away every question its events raise. Nor should we convert Ezekiel's particular prophetic instruction into a rule that grieving people must suppress tears, avoid funerals, or demonstrate faith through an absence of visible sorrow. The text calls his behavior a sign. It does not give us grounds to interpret another person's bereavement as a message about their wrongdoing. We do not possess Ezekiel's revelation about the losses around us. One faithful response is to approach grief with greater humility. We cannot measure love by the amount of crying we see. A stunned person may seem practical or quiet. Someone else may need to tell the story repeatedly. Our preferred style of mourning is too narrow a standard for everyone else's loss. If you are grieving, there may be practical decisions to make before you feel ready to make them. Let trusted people help. You need not turn every response into an explanation others can easily understand. When accompanying someone, ask what would be useful and respect what you do not know. The person who can handle an appointment may still need support. The person who cannot find words may still be feeling deeply. Let care remain present without requiring grief to perform for our reassurance. Put It into Practice Offer a grieving person a specific form of practical help without commenting on how they appear to be coping. Allow their response to be their own.

Have you expected someone's grief, including your own, to look a particular way before accepting its depth?

God who knows sorrow beyond my explanations, be near to the bereaved. Give practical support, patient companions, and room for different responses to loss. Keep me from making judgments about a heart I cannot fully see. Amen.