“I have no theology for this. I have no verse that explains a cradle robbed. When I stood here with the parents in the freezing rain, I didn't talk of ‘God's Plan.’ That is an insult to a mother's grief. I didn't talk of ‘Better Places.’”Father Tom · Peter James Stouffer
Father Tom says this over the stone of a four-month-old girl.
His office is the one most expected to have an answer ready, but the passage gives him no comfort to perform. He remembers what he actually did: stood there, in the freezing rain, with the parents.
The line matters because it refuses the phrases that would make grief easier for the speaker. Honest ministry, here, begins with the discipline not to explain what should not be explained.