I’m a Christian. How can I best love my friends who have lost a baby?

Last week was Baby Loss Awareness Week. Dan Martin and his wife, Anna, lost their son, Jed, when he was just three weeks old. He explains how the Church can help those who are bereaved

People who have lost a baby are hurting in so many ways. At the centre of it all, they have lost a dearly loved person. They are coming to terms with the loss of an entire future; of hopes and expectations for the coming months and years. Their minds are slow and numbed as grief dominates their inner circuitry. Simple tasks take 20 times longer than usual. Communication is a struggle.

Perhaps one spouse desperately wants to talk, while the other is shut down. Perhaps replying to messages feels overwhelming. Perhaps going to church and finding themselves amid a huddle of well-meaning people feels impossible. Grief, unsupported, can have a tragic way of isolating people.

As you enter into your friends’ grief and inhabit their pained landscape, will you embrace this awkwardness

Then there’s the mother’s physical suffering, as her body gives physical reminders of the baby they have lost. There’s the practical strain: taxes still need to be paid, the car needs repairing, bins need emptying. And what about any other children involved? Profoundly sensitive to grief in their own way, they look to their parents for how to process this bleak season. Lord Jesus, you who are near to the broken-hearted, please help us know how to love those who grieve!