Secrets make us sick, I've heard. I made secrets out of my questions and doubts and sadness and grief because I didn't know how to simply sit with them. Even now, I fight against the urge to explain or pretend or ignore away the darkness. It's uncomfortable to lean into the pain, to seek God there in the darkness.

The night that our friend's wife died, my brokenhearted husband called his mother: "What do I say?"... There is nothing to say. Stop thinking there is something to say to make it go away. It won't go away. Abandon your answers. Avoid your cliches. Don't blame God and don't blame him. Learn to sit in the sadness.

Here's this: when I was sad, when I had real, legitimate reasons for grief or despair or anger or any emotion that was perceived as negative or dark, I had nowhere to go. I didn't know how to feel my feelings. And by refusing to name or acknowledge them, sometimes the darkness simply grew.

Silence was akin to prayer for me for a long time. I simply moved through life with silence in my spirit, waiting on God. I couldn't pray, but the part of me that had once prayed was waiting. Simply waiting.

And as often happens with grief, this melancholy of mine began to include more than just my own experiences. When your heart breaks, anyone or anything can tumble in.

There is nothing to say. There is only what was happening. This is life sometimes. We mustn't pretend or compartmentalize or ignore or placate. Simply obey the sadness. Speak the truth of what is happening. Not the truth you wish were real. Not the truth that ought to be. Not the platitudes or time-worn cliches to minimize grief.

Sometimes our most holy calling is to listen, to bear witness.

The night that our friend's wife died, my brokenhearted husband called his mother: "What do I say? What do I do? What will fix this? There is nothing else to do. You do this every day. Mom: what do I do for my friend?""Now is the time to sit with him", she said.There is nothing to say. Stop thinking there is something to say to make it go away. It won't go away. Abandon your answers. Avoid your cliches. Don't blame God and don't blame him. Learn to sit in the sadness.