“God won’t give you more than you can handle.”
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“She’s in a better place.”

Sayings like these seldom bring comfort to people in crisis situations. At best, these expressions function like incantations to banish natural human emotions; at worst, they’re pious-sounding versions of “suck it up.” Still, for a variety of reasons, we continue to hear these cliches in settings where people are hurting. Having spent three years now working closely with people who are sick, dying, or grieving, I’ve noticed sayings like these bring the most comfort not to the people who hear them, but to the people who say them. Faced with incomprehensible pain, suffering, and loss, observers may use these expressions to make momentary sense of a situation, but this offers little comfort to the people receiving the words.

Falling back on these cliches has become fairly standard for our culture (which often doesn’t know what to do with grief), but please resist the urge. The more difficult thing to do is also the healthier thing to do: listen to what someone else is experiencing and feeling. If you choose to speak, offer words of affirmation, not trite moralisms; it’s more important to let people know they’ve been heard and are still loved even in the midst of their pain. Before speaking, ask yourself the hard question: “Will this really help the other person feel better about the situation, or will it only help me feel better?” And if your goal truly is to help someone, remember: a hand held in silence will bring more comfort than any words ever could.