Some years it seems like there is a wedding to attend nearly every month, other years are full of baby showers or graduations. This year, more than anything, our family and friends dealt with grief.

As 2015 came to a close, the losses came one after another. Some dear friends and family lost loved ones after long illnesses, others were blindsided by the death of their family member. Grief settled in among us.

My girlfriends are the strong ones in their families. They are the ones who take care of things, who get things done, the planners, the organizers, the doers. This year that meant services to plan, flowers to order, obituaries to write and eulogies to give.

I’m one of those doers too. I knew what to do when the loss was personal this year. And yet, I stood frozen, unsure of how to best support my friends.

Then I remembered something Glennon shared on Momastery.

“It’s so hard to know how to handle our friends’ grief.

My therapist suggested that when someone is in deep grief, at first, all a friend can do is ‘hold space’ for them. And you, Monkees, can ‘hold space’ for me. We can create and hold space for each other.” – Glennon, Momastery.com

And so we held space for each other.

Holding space came in all different shapes. It came in giving hugs and not giving hugs. It came in phone calls and texts when saying the words out loud was too much. It came in silence. It came in distraction. It came in making sure friends remembered to eat and bringing dinner so they had one less thing to do. It came in the spilling of tears and the privilege of tears being shed in our presence.

Holding space for others, and having space held for me, was sacred. 

By holding space, we were loving faithfully. We were sacrificing for each other. We were being the body of Christ.

Sorrow and grief walked along side us, but did not consume us, for we had each other.

How have you held space and had space held for you?