Words to share after loss

How many of us have wondered what to say to a friend or family member who has lost a loved one to death?  We rehearse what we are going to say over and over.  But many times, what people want is your presence not a well articulated speech. 

This past week, I finished reading Scandalous by D. A. Carson.  It is book on the resurrection, but he had a great section on death.  I wanted to share a few quotes from that section. 

"Jesus is outraged not because he has lost a friend but because of death itself. Death is such an ugly enemy. It generates endless and incalculable anguish."

"We are sinners, and we will die. Every time there is death, it still hurts. It is still painful. It is still ugly. . .This is not the way God made the creation in the first place. Jesus is outraged by the whole thing. Christians must adopt something of this same stance toward death."

"Death is an enemy, and it can be a fierce one. Death is not normal when you look at it from the vantage point of what God created in the first place. It is normal this side of the fall, but that is not saying much. It is an enemy. It is ugly. It destroys relationships. . . But death does not have the last word. Thank God for a Savior who could claim, "I am the resurrection and the life."

"Thus when we come to grips with these things, there needs to be both outrage and pain on the one hand and trust and quiet confidence on the other. The appropriate mingling of these things together is part of a genuinely Christian response to the ugliness, shock, terror, and loss of death. We begin to understand, and we sorrow, but not as those who have no hope."