When Pain Points at God: How to Love Someone Through Hurt You Can’t Fix

There comes a moment in every Christian’s life when someone sits across from you and shares a pain so deep that it shakes the room. A loss so brutal, a trauma so personal, or a betrayal so devastating that their heart can only land on one conclusion: “God did this to me.” When that happens, you feel the air get heavier. You feel their grief, their confusion, their anger and suddenly your own heart starts scanning for something helpful to say.

And that’s where most of us get it wrong.

We feel the pressure to respond quickly, to ease the tension, to “say something spiritual.” Sometimes we reach for the nearest cliché, not because it’s true in that moment, but because we’re uncomfortable with their pain. We try to defend God or explain God or wrap the moment in a neat theological bow. But none of that touches the real wound.

Because the wound beneath their words isn’t intellectual.

It’s relational.

It comes from the deepest human longing built into every soul:

The desire to know and to be known.

When someone’s heart has been shattered (especially in a way tied to family, children, safety, or identity) what they crave is not an answer. They crave witness. They want someone who sees the depth of what they went through and doesn’t look away. Even if we think we’ve walked through something similar, their pain is still uniquely theirs. No two parents experience the same heartbreak the same way. No two tragedies break the same bones. Pain is personal, and the worst thing we can do is pretend to understand it fully.

When people share their trauma, the weight of it starts to lift because, for the first time, they’re not carrying it alone. But when they hold it in, when no one is there to sit with them in it, that pain becomes a private prison. And this is why our role in that moment is not to fix, teach, argue, or defend but simply to be present. Because as much as we want to make it better, only God can actually know the entire story of their suffering, and only God can heal it from the inside out.

But here’s the tension:

The person sitting across from you might not be ready to see God as a healer.

All they feel is that He didn’t stop something that broke them.

And we don’t have the answer for why.

But we do have something else to give. Something God gives us every day: Love.

Love that listens without defending.

Love that sits without rushing.

Love that makes space for pain instead of filling it with noise.

Love that says, “I’m here. I have time. Your hurt matters.”

When someone feels that, they get a small glimpse of what God is really like. They experience just a fraction of His tenderness through your presence. That’s how hearts slowly soften. That’s how trust begins to rebuild. And slowly (sometimes very slowly) they discover that God has even more room in His heart for their grief than any human ever could.

Your job is not to answer the “Why.”

Your job is to reflect the “Who.”

Because healing doesn’t come through arguments.

It comes through presence.

When you stand with someone in their pain without trying to fix or explain it, you treat their heart with the same gentleness Jesus showed to the broken. He didn’t rush people through their suffering. He didn’t pressure them into premature faith. He didn’t preach sermons to grieving parents or wounded outcasts. He wept with them. He sat with them. He entered the pain before He redeemed it.

That’s our model.

Sometimes the holiest thing you can do is say:

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that.

I don’t know why it happened.

But I love you. And I’m here. And you don’t have to carry this alone.”

When you give someone space to be honest, to cry, to question, and to breathe, you become the living reminder that God has even greater space for them — a space large enough to hold every unanswered question, every ounce of their anger, and every part of their story.

You’re not responsible for healing their soul.

You’re responsible for giving their soul room to breathe.

Love is the bridge that leads people back to the only One who can carry the full weight of their pain. And sometimes the most righteous thing you can do is simply sit beside them and let your presence whisper what your words can’t.

Be a witness.

Be a refuge.

Be the love Christ has shown you.

And trust God to do the rest, because He always does.