I have had the sacred experience of sitting with people in some of their hardest moments. What I’ve learned is that most times what is best is to be silent and listen. This song came from one of those moments, when my daughter Hannah received a piece of bitter news for which platitudes would never suffice. No words could lighten the moment, no words could explain away the pain. This song is about sitting with grief, allowing it to hang in the air without pushing it away too quickly, going through it together, and being present with one another in its midst. To “let the darkness rest” is both finding a moment for the darkness to decrease while also letting it hover in our present circumstance.

I’ve found myself in many situations when I knew I didn’t have the right words to say no matter how hard I searched the recesses of my experience and training. I’ve also endured awkward moments when a well meaning soul has tried to relieve the grief by trying to provide some kind of rationalization in the midst of the unexplainable. And so I try to remind myself that “sometimes saying nothing means an awful lot of something when what the heart is wanting is just to grieve.” This letter is to the grieving accompanied by the words of Jesus from the sermon on the mount, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)