Bible verses for grief, for the weeks after
Fourteen verses for mourning, arranged for the first days, the long middle, and the hope that only makes sense later. Nothing here will tell you to feel better.
Grief does not want verses. In the first days it does not want anything, and well-meaning people who arrive with scripture ready are often the hardest to bear. So a page of Bible verses for grief needs to begin by saying what it is not. It is not a set of things that will make you feel better. It is not an argument that you should.
What it is: the words people have brought to God when someone died, for a very long time, quoted here exactly as they appear in the World English Bible. They are arranged in the order grief tends to move, not because it moves in order, but because the verse that is unbearable in the first week can be the one you need in the sixth month.
Read only as far as you can. The rest will still be here.
The first days
These verses do not explain anything. They say that God is close to the broken and that mourning is not a failure of faith. That is all the first days can hold.
The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit.
Psalm 34:18 · WEB
Near. Not fixing, not explaining. Near. It is the only promise that makes sense in the first week.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Matthew 5:4 · WEB
Jesus calls the mourners blessed, which is not the same as calling them fine. The comfort is promised, not scheduled.
He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.
Psalm 147:3 · WEB
Binds up is a slow verb. Wounds are dressed, not erased.
For though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
Lamentations 3:32 · WEB
From a book that is entirely a lament. It does not deny that God causes grief. It says compassion is on the other side of it.
A prayer to write
I do not have words. I am just going to sit here and let you be near, because you said you would be. I am not asking for anything yet.
The long middle
After the casseroles stop and the calls thin out, grief becomes ordinary, and that is its own kind of hard. These are the verses for the months when nobody is checking on you anymore and the loss is simply the shape of your days.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Psalm 23:4 · WEB
Through. The valley has another side, even when you cannot see it from where you are standing.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 · WEB
The comfort you receive is meant to become the comfort you give. That is not a job for now. It is a reason, later, that this was not wasted.
For his anger is but for a moment. His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may stay for the night, but joy comes in the morning.
Psalm 30:5 · WEB
Weeping may stay for the night. The psalmist does not say how long the night is.
to provide for those who mourn in Zion, to give to them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.
Isaiah 61:3 · WEB
Garland for ashes, oil for mourning. An exchange, not a denial. The ashes are real and so is what replaces them.
A prayer to write
It has been months and it is still the first thing I think of. Everyone else has moved on. Walk this part with me, the part where no one is watching. Turn the ashes into something eventually. I cannot see how.
The hope that comes later
These verses are about resurrection and the end of death. In the first week they can sound like a change of subject. Later, they are the only subject. Read them when you are ready and not before.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies.
John 11:25 · WEB
Said to Martha at her brother's tomb, before the miracle, while she was still angry with him for being late. Jesus does not correct the grief. He answers it.
But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope.
1 Thessalonians 4:13 · WEB
Grieve, Paul says, just not like people with no hope. The grief is assumed. The hope is what is added.
“Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.
John 14:1 · WEB
Troubled is the honest word. The verse does not say the heart will not be troubled. It says do not let it stay that way alone.
Precious in the LORD’s sight is the death of his saints.
Psalm 116:15 · WEB
Precious. Whatever else that death was, it was not overlooked.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. The first things have passed away.”
Revelation 21:4 · WEB
Every tear. Death no more. This is the end of the story, and it is a promise, not a metaphor.
A prayer to write
I believe you are the resurrection. I do not feel it today. Hold the belief for me until I can hold it again, and keep the promise about the tears. I am counting on that one.
Keep the prayers you prayed
One of the strange gifts of grief is that it teaches you to pray honestly, and one of its cruelties is that you forget those prayers. The thing you said to God at three in the morning in the second week is gone by the second month, and with it the evidence that you were met there.
Writing them down keeps them. Prayed brings each written prayer back to you at three days, a week, a month, six months and a year, which means the prayer from the first week is placed in front of you again in the long middle, when you need to see that you survived it. You can tag the person's name and every prayer for them gathers in one place, from the first day to whatever comes later. Nothing you write leaves your phone.
There is no right pace for any of this. Write when you can. Let it come back when it does.
Write the prayer. Prayed finds the verses.
Prayed is a private prayer journal for iPhone. Write what you're praying for and it matches three verses from the same Bible quoted above, on your phone, then brings the prayer back to you at three days, a week, a month and a year so you see what came of it. No account, no server. Writing is free forever.
Get Prayed on the App Store