Dear Friends, I have to give this disclaimer before you read this that these are things I have learned for helping others. This is in no way a request for my own self. God has been so gracious to me and I feel so loved and provided for by so many. It is simply for you and me and our lives as Christians to give ideas on how to serve even more.
I'm in labor right now with our 7th child. I will announce the name when all is over. But since I've had a little experience lately with grief I want to offer some kind encouragement to those who are on the other side looking at one in grief and feeling helpless on what to do. So here's a few things I've encountered.
1. Don't say, "Please let me know if you need a meal." Say, "When can I bring you a meal?" and then have several times ready to suggest that you know you can do and follow immediately before she can answer with, "Do you have a meal tonight? Or what about Thursday night? I would like to bring one to you please."
I have had so many people say, "Let me know if you need a meal." but I'm never, never going to tell someone I NEED a meal unless my kids were starving. I would never want to put my own emotions and laziness brought on by grief ahead of my neighbor's own time and resources. So if you want to do it, do it. If not, she will survive and God will provide for her.
2. Texting, fine. Email, fine. Facebook, OK. A phone call: better. * A random thing in the mail (a card, pictures your kids colored her, a little trinket (esp something personal about you: do you have a special interest or ability of something you make home made?), stuffed animal, chocolate, or if you live close, a hand picked bouquet of flowers, etc): has the power to take a day where she is alone and suffering and bring the light and love of Christ right to her if you can't be there. A visit: the best of all. (Bring a meal, or flowers, or a set of hands to hold her children and read to them so she can get five minutes to just sit and enjoy watching you with her children, giving both her and them joy...well, you're mothering her at a time in her life when she so rarely gets mothered anymore.
3. Pray and ask the Lord to show you ways you specifically with your own unique relationship to her and your own unique abilities can be a blessing to her.
4. Pray for her. Because she prays for you. In her suffering she prays for you and prays that you will be well and that you will never have to endure the suffering she has. She knows you too have your own suffering that is just as great, for we all do, but with Christ she knows both you and she will survive to the eschaton.
I hope some of this is helpful and I hope I never forget so that I can be as much of a blessing to my friends/neighbors in their day of need as everyone has been to me!
*I want to be very clear that texts, emails, and phone calls have all had the power to turn my day around and have meant so very much...but when a woman is suffering and she walks away from her phone or her computer, well suddenly she's all alone again. I have stacks of cards in my night stand that I am able to hold and touch and think of the dear friends that sent them and the babies they were sent for...it's sometimes the only physical piece of evidence I have for a pregnancy.
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