Word for lost loved one

What do you say to comfort someone who lost a loved one?

Our condolences.

You have my deepest sympathy on the loss of your father.

Sure, those things are appropriate to say, and even need to be said. But the mourner will hear variations of condolences and sympathy so many times that it almost loses meaning.

Today, we want to explore what the mourner is experiencing and let the reality of grief inform the words of comfort you offer.

At the end of the article, we’ll have plenty of sweet, heartwarming, and meaningful quotes for you to contemplate sharing at the right time.

But let’s first consider this: Is it really even possible for your words to offer comfort to someone who is grieving?

Words of Comfort After Loss

Your grieving friend or family member is going through so much right now. The grieving process takes time and effort from the mourner. Can anything you say even make a difference?

Yes. Absolutely.

It might not feel like it. You won’t cure their grief, or provide an instant salve for the wounds of their heart. You might not even feel like your words have had any effect at all. But your words matter – a lot.

The grieving person has an internal monologue going on. It is very, very easy for that jumble of thoughts and questions to go downhill.

Why me? Why him/her?
I can’t go on.
Will I ever feel anything again?
I don’t want to do anything.
Is this normal?
I just want to die.
Am I messed up? I’m too emotional. (Or…) I’m not emotional enough.
Did this happen because of how messed up I am?

If the internal monologue is all they have, it will be very difficult for them to grieve properly, process their emotions, and begin to clear their head and work through to a place of healing.

Your words can help by turning that monologue into something more of a dialogue. Outside input can break through those cycles that often lead to depression and stagnation.

What is the grieving person thinking and feeling right now?

Grief is an uncomfortable feeling. Your loss and pain can hit very deeply.

Some people have described it as feeling like “being cut in two.” It might feel as if you have lost a piece of yourself. It is natural and normal to grieve and to hurt when someone you love dies.

Some major emotions might be:

• Anger. This might be anger at God, with your loved one, with yourself, or with the doctors. Why didn’t God intervene on your loved one’s behalf? Did you do everything possible to help your loved one? Why didn’t the doctors do more? These are all valid questions, and furthermore, it is “Ok” to be angry.
• Loneliness. The loss of a spouse is devastating. You may not just be losing your spouse, but you may lose friendships as well. You may lose relationships with “couples.” You may also lose friendships with the spouse’s side of the family.
• Regret. You may feel regret for all of the time that you have lost with your loved one. The years that you planned for that will never happen.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross referenced five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The grieving person may or may not go through all of these stages of grief. She may revisit certain stages, skip some, or experience other “stages” (some experts say there are up to twelve).

As her friend, it is important for you to know that all of these feelings are normal and acceptable.

What words of comfort are best for those thoughts and feelings?

What else can be said besides, “I love you, I am here for you, or it’s alright to feel that way?” Try one of these phrases.

For loneliness:

• Can I come by and visit with you?
• Let me take you to lunch (coffee, etc).
• I’m turning off my phone’s “sleep” mode. Call me anytime, day or night.
• I am going to come over and cook dinner for you.
• Would you like to come to stay at our home for a few nights?

When your friend or loved one needs support:

• I don’t know how you feel, but I am here to help you in any way I can.
• I am grieving with you.
• How can I help you? Let me know what you need.
• Take all the time you need.
• I am out running errands. Can I do anything for you? Pick up groceries, pick up your kids or even run to the post office?

Related: How to Comfort Someone Who Is Grieving Through Text

What are some things that someone grieving the loss of a loved one does not want to hear?

Please, be considerate when talking to someone who is grieving.

Don’t say:

• I know how you feel.
• When I lost my….
• Stop crying.
• They are in a better place.
• God needed another angel in heaven.
• Buck up! Chin up!
• You should be over this by now.
• You’ll feel better.
• Time heals all wounds.
• You’re young. You can remarry.
• You can always have another child.
• It was “just” a cat/dog.

Related: What to Say (and What NOT to Say) When Someone Dies

What are some things you can do to comfort someone who lost a loved one?

When there are no words to say, what else can you do?

Offer a hug, a warm hand to hold, or simple eye contact and a listening ear. All of these actions can speak volumes without any words being exchanged.

Be sincere in all you do towards a grief-stricken person. Emotions are heightened, and you do not want to offend them.

Share your favorite photos of their loved one. If you have pictures on your phone, text them with a silly caption or a great memory.

More: 83 Practical Ways to Comfort Someone Who Is Grieving

Specific Words of Comfort

Comforting Text Messages

• I am thinking of you.
• I have no words… But I want you to know I love you and am here for you.
• Holding you close in my thoughts and prayers.
• I wish I could take your pain away.
• Just wanted to share this photo of [name] with you. He had such a wonderful heart and I’ll miss him a ton. [Attach photo]

Words of Comfort for a Friend

• Know that my prayers are covering you.
• I am always here for you, no matter what or when.
• Praying for you to have peace during this difficult time.
• I know this is hard. I love you.
• You can cry, talk, go take a nap, or be silent around me. I won’t be offended, I just want to support you.

Related: 50 Comforting Sympathy Prayers

Words of Comfort for Loss of a Family Member

• He/she was so important to me. I already miss him/her.
• Words can never express how sorry I am.
• There was no one in the world like ___________.
• God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1 Thinking of you, dear friend!
• [Name] was such a gem. I loved the way he would always joke around with us. I’m going to miss him. Grieving with you!

Words of Comfort for Loss of Mother

• The world will be a lonelier place without your mom.
• Your mom was one of the most beautiful people I have ever known.
• Your mother was a true friend. I will never forget her.
• What an amazing woman. I can’t imagine your grief. I’ll miss her too. Know that I love you and am thinking of you!

Words of Comfort for Loss of Father

• Your father was like a second dad to me. He will be greatly missed.
• There will never be another man quite like your dad.
• Your father always made everyone feel welcome and loved. He was a friend to all.
• The world lost a true man today. I’m praying that the Lord will comfort you as you mourn your father.

Words of Comfort for Loss of a Child

• I am thinking of you during this difficult time.
• Nothing can express the amount of pain you are feeling. Just know that I am praying for the “peace that passes understanding” to be over you and your family.
• We will never forget __________. He/she brought joy everywhere they went.
• My heart aches for you and with you. I’m thinking of you today, and grieving alongside you.

Words of Comfort in the Bible

Psalm 34:18 – The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Psalm 147:3 – He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Matthew 5:4 – Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 – 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.

More: Comforting Scripture Verses

Finding the right words to offer comfort can be tricky. More than anything, show your grieving friend that you care.

Show them support and understanding at this challenging time. You might feel like you have the right words to say, but you can certainly do the most important thing: Just show up.

Remember, not everything needs to be spoken. A simple gesture can speak so much. Being there is what matters.

Read next: 101 Best Condolence Messages

For what it is worth, I thought I would pass this incredible testimony onto the rest of you. Awhile back ago on TBN, they had a middle-aged couple on one of their talk shows that were really anointed.

They had their own church and ministry, but I cannot recall where it was at. But part of their testimony was on the death of their young daughter.

Here they were, serving God full time with their church and ministry, and their daughter ends up dying at a fairly young age. I came in on the story right as they were talking about it. I did not catch the age of the daughter or what the cause of her death was.

The wife had really been wrestling with God. How could You take her away from us so early in her life, how could You allow this to happen, why didn’t You heal her, why didn’t You protect her?

Both the wife and husband were really having a hard time in getting over her early death with the Lord. They could not understand or get a direct answer from God as to why He allowed their daughter to be brought home at such a young age and rob the both of them the joy of seeing their daughter grow up.

After all of this wrestling with the Lord for quite sometime, the wife said she then received a direct word from the Holy Spirit that immediately set her free from her mental captivity. And boy did I get a whopper witness off this Word!

I will give you exactly what the Word was and an additional revelation that God gave the both of them on the death of their young daughter.

For those of you who have lost close, loved ones in your past – grab a hold of this direct Word from the Lord. This Word from the Lord has been used by this couple to set many other people free from the depression and anger they have slipped into as a result of not being able to deal with the death of a close loved one.

God was telling them that their daughter was no longer in their past. She had died and she was now in heaven with God and Jesus!

God was telling them that they now had to move on with their lives, to let the past go, including the death of their daughter, and to continue to press forward into the divine call that He had placed on both of their lives.

1.  You have to step back and look at the big picture. We are all going to die and cross over – no exceptions!

Some just go sooner than others. When you die is irrelevant.

What you do with the time that you have down here is what really matters.

It’s quality – not quantity!

When you really grasp the meaning of the words that the Holy Spirit spoke to her – you understand that they should actually be rejoicing.

Their daughter is now in the most perfect place imaginable and they are both guaranteed to be reunited with her once they die and cross over.

They should be keeping the picture of their daughter in front of them – in their own personal futures – which will also be heaven for the both of them when they die and cross over.

God was also telling them that if they did not quit wallowing in their past, they would eventually die in their past, and they would no longer be able to move forward for Him because they would end up staying stuck in their past.

Too many people are bound up with things that have happened to them in their past. They cannot let go of some of the bad things that may have occurred in their past.

As a result, their past slowly starts to eat away at them until they get to a point where they no longer have any joy or zest for living.

They then start slipping into depressions and then lose all of their desire to even want to live anymore.

2.  Shortly after receiving this direct revelation from the Lord and being set free, they came across a woman who had also lost her son.

Her son had died about a year ago and the woman had slipped into a severe depression. She had literally boarded up her house, closed all the drapes and curtains, and would no longer even go outside.

She had completely shut down due to the pain and heartache she was going through at losing her son at what apparently was also a fairly young age.

This couple had given their testimony on the above revelation to a church this woman had been attending. The testimony was taped and one of the church members then slipped the tape to this woman who had boarded herself up in her house.

The woman took the tape into her bedroom. She listened to it over and over again all night along, literally until the sun broke at dawn.

When the sun broke at dawn, she later testified that she knew God was speaking to her through this couple’s testimony on this tape. She said the message and revelation from this couple that was on this tape set her free from the mental captivity that she had placed herself under as a result of not being able to see the truth of her son’s death.

The Bible says that the truth will set you free and this is a perfect example of this biblical truth coming into full operation!

Once she fully grasped what God was trying to tell her, and it apparently took all night for this revelation to really sink into her mind, she was finally set free and was able to start fully living again.

This couple said that these specific words spoken to them by the Holy Spirit has helped many other people deal with the death of their close loved ones.

Bible Verses For Death of Loved Ones

1. Here are 3 good verses from Scripture that will back up the words spoken to this couple by the Holy Spirit.

• But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)
• “… but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead. I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14)

Look at the words in this second verse: “forgetting those things which are behind” and “reaching forward for those things which are ahead.” This verse perfectly lines up with what the Holy Spirit was trying to tell this couple – to let the death of their daughter go, which was now in their past, and to look forward, to press forward for the things which are now ahead of them in their futures.

And one of the things ahead for this couple in their futures will be their own physical deaths and their own crossing over into heaven and being reunited with their daughter, where they will never be separated from her ever again!

2. This next verse talks about plowing forward in hope.

“… he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be a partaker of his hope.” (1 Corinthians 9:10)

This verse is telling us that each one of us should continue to plow for God with whatever time we still have left down here on this earth – with the understanding that we will eventually be reunited with all of our saved loved ones who have gone home before us.

And not only should we continue to plow forward with this hope in mind, but we should also be a partaker of that hope. In other words, really believe that when you die, you will be reunited with all of your saved loved ones, and this time it will be for good – for all of eternity!

Heaven is going to be the final and ultimate reward for all Christians. The Bible tells us that we cannot even begin to imagine all of the good things that God will have in store for all of those who will be entering into His dwelling place. But one thing we do know for sure – we will all be given the two greatest rewards any human can ever hope to receive once we cross over to the other side.

• We will forever be united with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ and we will be able to have direct contact and fellowship with the both of Them for the rest of all of eternity.
• And then to top it all off – we will forever be reunited with all of our saved loved ones who have made it into heaven, and we will once more be able to enjoy the friendships that we had established with each one of them while living down here on this earth.

Now that’s an incredible one-two punch that can’t be beat. And to top it all off, there will be mansions and who knows what else from God the Father.

The other thing that happened with this couple is that before they received this direct Word from the Lord, they found themselves taking their daughter’s pictures and photos out of a lot of their family portraits because it was too painful for them to see her and to be reminded of her death.

After receiving the above Word from the Lord, they were then told to put all of her pictures back in with the rest of the family pictures.

He told them that she was not dead – that she was fully alive in heaven – and that they should all be rejoicing because their time would come when they would all be reunited with her once again.

They were told not to try and put her out of their memory. They were to keep intact all of her photos and all of their memories of her.

They were all to look forward to the future when they would once again be reunited with her in heaven.

When this couple received all of the above from God the Father through the Holy Spirit, they were then all set free from the mental captivity they had placed themselves under, and they were then able to pick themselves back up and get back into fully living in their present again.

The other revelation that the wife received from God the Father was on the question as to why – why did God allow her daughter to be taken home so early?

God basically told her there will be times when He will not tell you why He allows something specific to happen in your life, like the early death and departure of a close loved one.

Sometimes it may be better that you not know why God brings someone home so early. Maybe that person was going to have something really bad happen to them somewhere down the road and God wanted to spare them the pain of having to go through it – so He arranges to have them brought home early.

There could be many different reasons as to why God may have brought this person home early, and maybe with half of those reasons you are better off not knowing.

She finally came to the conclusion that if it was God’s will that she not know why He had brought her daughter home so early – that she would simply have to trust God that He did have a good enough reason to bring her home early and to let it go at that!

The Bible says that we can only “know in part.” We will never get all of the answers to all of life’s problems and dilemmas. God will answer many of our questions if He is properly approached.

The Bible says to “ask, and you will receive.”

But when God does decide not to answer a specific question you may have, then you have to accept the fact that He has a good enough reason not to give you His answer, trust that He knows what He is doing and what is best for the situation at hand – and then move on with the rest of your life.

If you don’t, you will run the risk of getting stuck in the misery of your past. And if you do not pull up out of the misery of your past, then you will never fully accomplish whatever God’s perfect plan and destiny would have been for your life.

Conclusion

For those of you who have had a very difficult time in accepting the death of a close loved one, really chew on the above Word given to this couple by the Holy Spirit.

For those of you who may know someone who is really having a hard time handling the death of a close loved one like a child, a spouse, a parent, or a best friend, give them a copy of this article and/or sit down with them and give them the above Word from the Spirit of God.

Share the above testimony with them on this couple and the other woman who had lost her son.

Pray that God will move in on them with illumination and insight so they can fully grasp and understand that even though the death of a close loved one is a very painful experience, that their loved one’s death is now a new beginning for them.

Their close loved one is now in the most perfect place imaginable and they will be reunited with them once again in just a very short period of time. This life on this earth is just for a very brief moment in the eternal scheme of things – but the life to come, where they are at now, will be forever.

Remember what the Holy Spirit Himself has spoken – your loved one is no longer “dead in your past” – your loved one is now “fully alive in your future” – which is heaven.