Always Say Something

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

—Colossians 4:6

When something bad happens, people say the wrong things so often. They say weird, hurtful things when they’re trying to be nice. But it’s much worse when people say nothing. When I lost my job, embarrassed and hurt and tender, I remember exactly who walked the other direction when they saw me at church and who walked toward me. The same was true with my miscarriages. I can tell you to this day what people said and, much more hurtfully, who said nothing at all.

Some people didn’t know what to say, and they said just that: “I heard what happened, and I don’t know what to say.” That is a very good response. Some people said really helpful, really loving things. The point is this: always say something.

I know we’re busy, and we forget sometimes. More than anything, we don’t want to say the wrong thing. It’s impolite, we’ve been told, to bring up nasty topics like loss and sadness. But if we don’t bring it up, what are we left with? We talk about the easy things, the happy things, the weather, and then we leave one another totally alone with the diagnosis or the divorce papers.