A Prayer for Grief (After the Loss of Someone You Loved)
Grief is not a mountain you climb once. It is a place you live in for a season. This prayer is for the days you are inside it - the first weeks, and the second Christmas.
The prayer
Lord Jesus,
you know what it is to weep. You wept at the grave of your friend.
I miss [name] today, and I cannot pretend I do not.
Come and sit beside me the way you sat beside their family.
Keep me from bitterness on the days I cannot say their name without crying.
Keep me from silence on the days I need to say it out loud.
Hold their family tonight, and the ones who forgot to ask us how we are doing.
Bring them, and us, all the way through this.
Amen.
The verse behind it
Jesus wept.
Two words. It is the shortest verse in the Bible, and one of the most honest. Jesus stood beside a family who had lost their brother, and he did not fix them first. He wept with them.
When to say it
- On the anniversary you dread.
- On the birthday they are not here for.
- On the Sunday the sermon reminds you of them and you cannot say why.
- In the car after a family gathering that felt one seat short.
Send it as a film
If a family you love is walking through their first year without someone, a film that says their person's name in Jesus's voice can be enough for a day. A Memorial Film for Them is our short remembrance, drawn from the details their family gives us; it plays in a service, at a graveside, or on the anniversary night, quietly.
For a spoken prayer without the film, A Memorial Prayer for Them is Jesus's own voice praying by name, and arrives in the inbox in minutes.