Have you ever had the experience of being close to someone whose heart has been broken? It can be an extremely helpless feeling. No matter what words you prepare and rehearse, you know that there’s nothing you can do to take away the pain. It’s a difficult place to be for the one who is on the outside looking in. It feels as though your heart is breaking too, breaking for the one who is suffering through a tragedy or loss or painful trial. It’s not always possible to be physically present with the one who is hurting. Sometimes distance stands in the way of giving a hug or putting your arm around a shoulder or crying together.

God, what should I do? What can I say? How can I be supportive? How can I help to ease the pain? I talk to God a lot, pretty much throughout the entire day. When I ask a question, I try to listen for the answer and I believe that He’s given me answers many times. Those answers haven’t always come in ways that are expected. Sometimes the answer comes in that still small voice. Sometimes, it’s through a scripture passage. Sometimes it’s through another person. Yesterday it was through music. It came when flipping through YouTube videos on my iPad while cleaning up after dinner.

“Say something that says something …. sometimes the greatest way to say something is to say nothing at all.” The answer came in the form of a duet by Chris Stapleton and Justin Timberlake. Song lyrics can be interpreted in whatever way the listener chooses. I knew what those lyrics meant for me at that moment. They meant that the greatest way to help ease the pain in this situation was to say nothing at all. They meant that “He [God] must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). They meant that my role was to love by simply sharing scripture passages. They meant that what was needed for the brokenhearted was not to hear from me, but from God. But God. The God of the Broken-Hearted. 

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