The One Question Christians Need To Stop Asking People, When Their Loved One Dies

Two days after my father died, I was walking into my church and ran into a good friend. She hugged me and expressed how sorry she was for my loss.

She loves me and she meant it.

Then, without taking a breath, she looked me in the eyes and asked a question that kicked me right in the stomach, and she never even knew it:

“Your Dad was saved, right? I mean, He knew the Lord, right?”

Christian, this is both a common, and really, really terrible question to ask anyone who has just lost someone they love deeply. There’s simply no good resolution, and here’s why:

If the person answers, Yes, to the question of whether or not their loved one was “saved”, what immediately follows is an attempt, (intentionally or not), to minimize the grieving person’s own personal pain; the rationale being, that if we know that Uncle Bill is dancing in…