6 Powerful Ways to Support a Grieving Loved One

Grief is hard, there’s not doubt about that. But so is supporting someone who is grieving, and I think that gets overlooked sometimes. It is so hard to know how to love and support someone who is dealing with grief, because in all reality, nothing you say or do will take their pain away. That being said, I have found a few things that helped me a lot when I was grieving, and I wanted to share those in case you aren’t sure how to help someone you love. Please know that these are all based on my personal experience. There is no one-size-fits-all formula, so don’t take what I say as the magic solution for your specific situation! These are simple suggestions that you can try.

Pray for them.

This is almost going to be my number one suggestion for how to help a friend who is dealing with grief. No one heals a grieving heart quite like God, so the best way you can support your loved one is to ask Him for help! You don’t have to have the most intricate prayers in the world. I would start with something simple like this: “Lord, give them peace and comfort during this time. Help them to find rest in you, and touch their hearts so that they can feel you with them.”

You can also pray for guidance on how to support them yourself! When you don’t know what to do or say, ask the Lord to guide you. Maybe all He will tell you to do is to just keep praying, or maybe He will give you specific instructions on how to support them. Either way, ask Him to guide you and be obedient to what He says.

If you don’t know what to pray, here is a great list of prayers you can say for a loved one who is dealing with loss of any kind! You can also check out my Prayer for the Brokenhearted if your loved one needs something to pray over themselves!

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Matthew 5:4

Use actions, not words.

I have no idea what to say to someone who is grieving. Truly, I have no clue. For a long time this bothered me, because I felt like I should know. After all, I have been the one grieving on multiple occasions. Shouldn’t I know what to say to someone in that situation? But I don’t.

One day I finally realized that it’s because there is nothing to say, not really. Sure, you want to show your support, but at the end of the day, nothing you say is going to make that person feel better. Nothing you say can take their pain away. In fact, I even hate saying something as simple as “I’m sorry for your loss.” I remember hearing that so many times that I basically went numb to it. It meant nothing. In general, most words will mean nothing to someone who is grieving (or at least, that was the case for me—please know I am not trying to speak for everyone!).

What does mean a lot is what you do for them. Most of the positive feelings I had in the aftermath of losing my mom and dad came from what my friends and family did for me, not what they said.

I’ll give you an example:

After my mom passed away, I skipped one day of school and then went back. I actually considered not even skipping that one day, because for me, I just wanted something normal at that time. When I got back to school, my classmates had put together a gift basket for me with a big card and some of my favorite candies and things like that. It was truly a sweet gesture, and I am so thankful for the thoughtfulness of everyone at my school. They didn’t make a big deal about it, but I felt loved, and that’s what mattered.

As great as the gifts and cards were, that wasn’t what made the biggest impact on me. The day I returned to school we had a big picnic at one of the local parks. While we were there, my friends and I decided to take a group picture. When I saw the picture, realized that every single one of them was wearing a blue shirt. I remember making a comment along the lines of, “oh wow, I just realized you guys are all wearing blue.” They responded with, “yeah, we wore it because it’s your favorite color.”

This one act was so simple, but it meant the world to me.

To this day, that has been one of the most impactful moments of my life. Knowing my closest friends did that just to somehow show me they were there to support me meant everything. I have no idea what it was like for them during that time, but I imagine they probably struggled with what to do or say. They all loved my mom, and my mom loved them. I know her death was a loss for them as well. Yet, their priority was still to love and support me.

I don’t think I ever expressed to them just how much that meant to me, but I cry every time I think about it. So if any of you are reading this, thank you for showing me what it looks like to support a friend who is dealing with grief. I wouldn’t have made it without you.

So when I say use actions and not words, this is what I mean. You don’t have to be a therapist to help someone you love. You just have to care enough to show your support in whatever way you can. I promise you that even something as simple as wearing their favorite color will mean the world to them.

Have zero expectations.

This one is pretty self-explanatory. You can’t expect anything from someone who is grieving, especially when the loss is fresh. They don’t even know what to expect of themselves, so there’s no way for you to be able to know what they are or aren’t ready for. You think they need to go out? Don’t expect it. It’s been six months and you think it’s time for them to start feeling better? Definitely don’t expect that. You want them to tell you how they’re feeling? Again, don’t expect it.

Expectations will always leave you disappointed and make them feel like they should be doing things they simply aren’t ready for. So set aside whatever preexisting assumptions about grief that you might have and just accept the fact that they have to move at their own pace. You might not understand their process, and you might not even agree with it, but grief is different for everyone. It’s best for all involved if you hold zero expectations and trust that your loved one will work through their grief in their own way.

Don’t underestimate the power of your presence.

Sometimes we can feel this pressure to say or do something to help a friend or family member when they’re grieving. It’s like this feeling of needing to do something to make them feel better. The truth is, we won’t be able to make them feel better, at least not immediately. Often times, the best thing we can do for someone who is grieving is to just be there. Grief can make a person feel entirely alone, even when they know they are not the only ones to ever experience loss. There is just something about it that makes you feel alone in the world.

No one can really fix this feeling. It’s one of those things that takes time to work through, but I do believe that friends and family can help to chip away at it a little bit at a time. For me, one of the things that really helped me fight that feeling was to simply be around others. We didn’t need to be doing anything special, and we rarely talked about what I was going through. It was just helpful to have my friends or family there with me.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34:18

I appreciated the simple presence of those that I loved. When I was by myself, especially going to sleep at night, the pain of my loss would take over at full force. That pain didn’t go away when I was with others, but it was much more bearable when my best friend or my sister or someone else was next to me. So when you don’t know what to say or do, just know that your presence alone is probably helping more than you know.

Try to anticipate their needs, but don’t assume how they feel.

This might sound a bit contradictory, so let me explain. One of the most common questions my family would get after losing my parents was, “what do you need?”. Now don’t get me wrong, this is so appreciated! It definitely shows that people care and want to help. However, when you are in a whirlwind of change and emotions after a loss, the last thing you want to try and think about is how to tell people what you need. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but if you are the friend asking that question, I would suggest trying to anticipate what they need before asking. Just make sure that you’re not assuming how they feel, because that is a totally different thing!

Here are some examples:

After my dad died, everyone at our school put together a meal train. My mom was now a single mother to four kids, and meals were a need that could be easily anticipated without someone having to ask. They would drive it up to our house (which was way up on top of the mountain) and sometimes stay for a while and hang out with us. We were all so thankful for this, because it eliminated a worry for us without us even having to ask.

The day my mom died, my siblings and I had to come to terms with the fact that we were now orphans. Even though I knew we had a loving family who would take care of us, the question of “what’s going to happen to us?” still ran rampant through my mind. As soon as my aunt got home to us, the first thing she did was pull my sister and I in for a hug and told us, “I want you to know that you are going to be taken care of.”

Even though she had no idea what we were feeling in that moment, she anticipated the fact that one of our biggest concerns would be that we had no one to go home to, and she immediately spoke to that. I am forever grateful to her for saying that, and for taking us in and loving us as her own.

Another way friends anticipated our needs was by getting groceries. When we moved in with my aunt, she was already a single mom to three kids, and she now had three more to take care of. That first week we moved in, two of her good friends went and bought a ton of groceries for us. Things for breakfast, dinner, school lunches, snacks, everything. It was more groceries than I had ever seen before. They didn’t ask if we needed that, they just did it. That was probably one of the best things anyone could have done for us during that time.

Encourage professional support.

This one might seem controversial, and there is definitely some tact required in how you do it, but I think this is so important. The key word here is encourage. Don’t force or nag, and don’t bring it up so much that it makes them feel like there’s something “wrong” with them. After my mom passed away, my aunt felt a lot of pressure to get us all into counseling, so we tried one family session and it was horrible. It turned me off of anything that even remotely resembled therapy for years. I hate that this was my experience, because I’m now at a place where I have started seeking professional help and it has done so much good for my healing.

Use good judgement and a lot of tact!

When I say encourage professional support, I want you to know that I don’t mean for you to tell your loved one that they need therapy. Something as simple as saying, “hey, have you considered talking to a professional?” might do the trick. The important thing is to make sure they know that, one, there is absolutely nothing wrong with professional support, and two, that they don’t have to do it if they aren’t ready for that. A lot of people need time to process on their own before they can even think about sharing with someone else, and that’s totally fine! But I do firmly believe that professional support after any sort of trauma is a crucial step to complete healing.

Take into consideration the fact that everyone is different, and if you don’t think your loved one would take this encouragement well, then hold off on it for a bit. This is the one tip on this list that is super subjective, so think about what kind of person they are and how they feel about professional help before you mention this to them!

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

I hope this list gave you some ideas on how to support a friend who is dealing with grief! Remember that this is all based on my personal experience, so these aren’t going to work the same way for everyone else as they did for me. The most important thing is for them to know that they are not alone (even though they will probably feel that way for a while regardless). Love and support them the best way you know how; they will probably be grateful for anything you are able to give them!