When we are truly bereaved, expressions like “God has a bigger plan” fall flat. True, but all wrong. Mouthing such a platitude is sometimes premature when all we want to do, as Job wanted to do, is curse God. All the catechism answers we’ve been given in our years of religious training and all our Bible studies don’t mean much at such times. Unless we find the grace to put ourselves in the sufferer’s place, if circumstances have not put us there already, our reactions will be empty academic answers.
