Choosing a verse for someone in a hard season
The wrong verse at the wrong moment does real damage. A short guide to picking one that helps.
We write the cards for the Comfort boxes by hand, which means that several times a week someone tells us what has happened to a person we have never met and asks us to find the right words. We have got it wrong often enough to have learned something.
The problem with Romans 8:28
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” It is true, and it is one of the most quoted verses in the New Testament, and handed to someone three days after a funeral it can land like a slap.
Not because it is wrong, but because of what it implies about timing. It asks the reader to skip to the resolution while they are still in the middle. A person who has just lost someone does not need to be told that this will turn out to have been for the good. They may believe that. They may get there. They are not there on Tuesday.
The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. — Psalm 34:18
What tends to work
Verses about presence rather than verses about outcome. Psalm 34:18. Isaiah 43:2 — “when you pass through the waters, I will be with you”, which notably does not say you will avoid them. Psalm 23:4, and specifically the word through.
These say: God is here, in this, now. They do not require the reader to feel better in order to accept them.
A short test
Read the verse out loud and then ask yourself: does this tell them how to feel? If it does, put it back. “Do not be anxious about anything” is a wonderful passage and a terrible thing to hand an anxious person, because it converts instantly into one more thing they are failing at.
And write something of your own
A verse on its own can read as a way of not saying anything. One line in your handwriting — I do not know what to say, but I am not going anywhere — is worth more than the best-chosen passage on a printed card, and the two together are better than either alone.
If you are ordering a Comfort box and you want us to write it for you, tell us their name and what happened. We would rather take the extra minute.