--- title: "Bible verses for the loss of a parent" description: "One passage for the death of a mother or father, the part of the psalm it belongs to, why Romans 8:28 lands badly this early, and what the bereaved say." url: "https://biblenudge.com/blog/bible-verses-for-the-loss-of-a-parent" lang: "en" published: "2025-09-19" modified: "2025-09-19" author: "Cal Hewitt" tags: ["grief","loss of a parent","death of a mother","death of a father","estranged parent","funeral readings","psalm 34"] image: "https://biblenudge.com/og/blog-bible-verses-for-the-loss-of-a-parent.jpg" alternates: es: "https://biblenudge.com/es/blog/versiculos-para-la-muerte-de-una-madre-o-un-padre.md" --- # Bible verses for the loss of a parent [Cal Hewitt](https://biblenudge.com/about/cal-hewitt)Published September 19, 2025 - grief - loss of a parent - death of a mother - death of a father - estranged parent - funeral readings - psalm 34 ![Bible verses for the loss of a parent](https://biblenudge.com/blog/bible-verses-for-the-loss-of-a-parent/featured.jpg) [Psalm 34](https://biblenudge.com/context/psalm-34-18) spends its first half on one man's rescue and its second half explaining what he learned from it. The line about broken hearts sits in that second half, which means it is not a cry for help but something said afterwards, by somebody who has been there, to people who are still in it. For anybody whose mother or father has just died, that is a different kind of sentence from the ones usually offered. ## The short version ### One passage Psalm 34:18 says God is near to people whose hearts are broken. The verses on either side of it do promise rescue. Neither of them puts a date on it. ### Where it sits It is not the opening cry of the psalm. It comes in the second half, where somebody is explaining what they now know. ### Not Romans 8:28 Offered days into a loss, it asks you to find the good in your parent’s death, and nobody can do that on request. ### If it was difficult Cruse names grieving a relationship that can now never be healed. Relief and loss sit together more often than anybody admits. ## Psalm 34:18 > Yahweh is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit. And the same verse in the King James: > The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. ![Psalm 34:18 in the World English Bible, set as a card](https://biblenudge.com/blog/bible-verses-for-the-loss-of-a-parent/verse-card.jpg) ## What surrounds it Psalm 34 is a psalm of thanksgiving, and it is an acrostic: each section starts with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which is a very deliberate way to write for somebody who is supposed to be overwhelmed. The heading on it says David wrote it after escaping a king by pretending to be insane. Commentators have argued about that heading for a long time, partly because the king in the story that usually gets paired with it has a different name. Some treat the two names as the same office; others think the heading was attached later and does not fit. What survives all of that is the position of the verse. Wherever the heading came from, and whoever the king was, the line about broken hearts still belongs to the half of the psalm that teaches rather than the half that cries out. The verses on either side are worth reading before anybody tells you this psalm is careful, because it is not. Verse 17 says Yahweh hears the righteous "and delivers them out of all their troubles." Verse 19 says it again, having just conceded the point: "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but Yahweh delivers him out of them all." The psalm claims rescue, twice, on either side of the line about the broken heart. What it never does is say when. That is the whole distance between this and a promise somebody can hold you to by Thursday, and it is why verse 18 is the one to sit with tonight: it is in the present tense, and it is about where God is while the heart is still broken. ![An open book on a kitchen table late at night, one lamp on, the rest of the room dark](https://biblenudge.com/blog/bible-verses-for-the-loss-of-a-parent/where-the-reader-is.jpg) *Most people read this at an hour when there is nobody to ask.* ## What to do with it Nothing, if you do not want to. You do not have to feel anything in particular after reading a verse, and if it did not land, that is not a failure of yours. The question underneath this passage is what it would mean to let nearness be enough today, instead of an explanation. Most people looking for verses after a death are really looking for a reason. This one does not offer one. It offers company. ## Why this one, and not Romans 8:28 [Romans 8:28](https://biblenudge.com/context/romans-8-28) is the verse that tends to arrive first after a funeral: that all things work together for good. Offered days into a loss, it asks you to find the good in your parent's death, and nobody can do that on request. Being asked to makes people feel they are failing at grief on top of everything else. Three more come up constantly, and it is worth knowing where they come from. **"God needed another angel"** is not in the Bible. Not a paraphrase of anything, not a verse anybody can point to. GotQuestions, which is about as far from a skeptical source as you can get, [calls it unbiblical outright](https://www.gotquestions.org/rest-in-peace-RIP.html). **"Everything happens for a reason"** is not a Bible quotation either. Those words are not in any passage. People who say it are usually reaching for Romans 8:28, and What's Your Grief lists it among [the things that land badly on the bereaved](https://whatsyourgrief.com/what-not-to-say-after-a-death/). **"They are in a better place"** is not a line of Scripture. It is also the one where Christian traditions genuinely differ, on what happens immediately after death and how much anybody can say about a particular person, so somebody saying it confidently is saying more than their own tradition may hold. None of that makes the people who said them unkind. They were reaching for something. ## What other people have written about this These were all written in public on Reddit by people in the middle of it, and they are left as they were typed. **The size of it, said plainly.** "how will i live the rest of my life knowing that my favourite person in the entire world is gone forever," somebody wrote on Reddit's [r/GriefSupport](https://www.reddit.com/r/GriefSupport/comments/z1c0o1). Further down the same thread: "I'm feeling broken." **Grief for things that have not happened yet.** In that thread again: "She wont get to see me graduate university, wont see my wedding, my kids, nothing." The list is specific rather than general, and it points forward rather than back. **It does not run to schedule.** "My mom passed away 2 years ago and sometimes it still feels like yesterday that she left us," on [a Reddit thread from 2024](https://www.reddit.com/r/GriefSupport/comments/1d5rh8d). Underneath it, somebody counting: "496 days today since my mom died." **Other people have not been here.** From the same thread: "my wife still has both of her parents ... but just doesnt understand what it feels like to lose a parent." And on another Reddit forum, [r/Christianity](https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/1s1y5bw/), a warning passed from one bereaved person to another: "Don't be surprised if you call your dad before realizing he is gone." That last one points at something [Cruse Bereavement Support](https://www.cruse.org.uk/understanding-grief/grief-experiences/losing-a-parent/) puts in writing. Losing a parent, it says, can leave an adult "feeling like a child again", and in its guide [When your parent dies](https://www.cruse.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/94149-When-your-parent-dies.pdf) it names the thing nobody says out loud: outsiders may assume children, "especially if they are now adult", need less sympathy than the surviving husband or wife. Which is how somebody ends up fielding questions about how their surviving parent is coping, and almost none about themselves. ## If the relationship was difficult ![A landline telephone on a hall table, the house quiet around it](https://biblenudge.com/blog/bible-verses-for-the-loss-of-a-parent/the-call-you-do-not-make.jpg) Not everybody reading this lost somebody they liked. Cruse says it plainly: after a difficult or estranged relationship, a person may grieve a relationship that can now never be healed, and relief can sit alongside loss. Marie Curie's page on [relief after a death](https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/blog/relieved-when-someone-dies) gives the specific case of a parent who was abusive and who can no longer hurt anyone, and its page on [complicated grief](https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/information/grief/complicated-grief) records that other people often find this hard to understand. What people write themselves is blunter. "There is no more hope for our relationship to ever change, now," on Reddit's [r/EstrangedAdultKids](https://www.reddit.com/r/EstrangedAdultKids/comments/1v9si3r/). "It had been 12 years of no contact and I grieved the loss of him then," on [another thread there](https://www.reddit.com/r/EstrangedAdultKids/comments/1w9bey6/). And, from [r/EstrangedAdultChild](https://www.reddit.com/r/EstrangedAdultChild/comments/1st2sf6/), the whole feeling in four words: "Then kind of meh." None of that is a failure to grieve properly. Psalm 34:18 does not ask what the relationship was like before it says where God is. ## Three more, if you want them **[Psalm 147:3](https://biblenudge.com/context/psalm-147-3).** "He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds." The verse before it has [Yahweh building up Jerusalem and gathering the outcasts of Israel](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+147&version=WEB), and the healing of broken hearts simply carries that sentence on. It is listed as public work of the same order as rebuilding a city, rather than as a private consolation offered on its own. **[Matthew 5:4](https://biblenudge.com/context/matthew-5-4).** "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." It is one line of [the Beatitudes](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5&version=WEB), and what it leaves out is every condition you might expect. There is no clause about how long the mourning may run, and none about the relationship having been a good one. **[Lamentations 3:31-32](https://biblenudge.com/context/lamentations-3-31-32).** "For the Lord will not cast off forever. For though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses." It comes out of [the one book of the Bible that is entirely a lament over a ruined city](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lamentations+3&version=WEB). Grief with a whole book to itself rather than a verse. ## If you are choosing something to read at a funeral A lot of people arrive here for that rather than for themselves. What you need is short, reads well aloud, and does not need explaining first. Psalm 34:18 does that. Read a few verses either side of it so the room hears it in its own setting rather than as a line lifted out. ## Where to go next [Read Psalm 34:18 with the verses either side of it](https://biblenudge.com/context/psalm-34-18). The [grief page](https://biblenudge.com/resources/grief) covers the wider ground, including the later months. If this is not the passage, [Bible Nudge](https://biblenudge.com/) will take a sentence about your mother or your father in your own words. [Find a passage](https://biblenudge.com/nudge). If grief has turned into not wanting to be here, that is worth telling somebody tonight. In the United States the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is 988, by call or text. Outside the US, [Find A Helpline](https://findahelpline.com) lists services by country. ## Words that come up here Tap a term to see what it means. **Acrostic.** A poem whose sections each begin with the next letter of the alphabet. [Psalm 34](https://biblenudge.com/context/psalm-34-18) is one in Hebrew, which is a very deliberate shape to give a subject that feels shapeless. **Psalm of thanksgiving.** A psalm written after a rescue rather than during one. That is why [Psalm 34](https://biblenudge.com/context/psalm-34-18) turns from one man’s story into instruction halfway through. **Superscription.** The heading above a psalm naming an author or an occasion. [Psalm 34](https://biblenudge.com/context/psalm-34-18)’s places it after David escaped a king by feigning madness, and commentators have argued about it for centuries. **Lament.** A prayer that complains to God and does not resolve. Lamentations is an entire book of it, which is why it is worth knowing about when a verse feels too tidy. **Complicated grief.** Marie Curie’s term for grief made harder by its circumstances, including a strained or estranged relationship with the person who died. ## Share this page If somebody you know is carrying this, the link goes straight to the passage and what surrounds it. Nothing here asks them to sign up for anything. [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbiblenudge.com%2Fblog%2Fbible-verses-for-the-loss-of-a-parent)[Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbiblenudge.com%2Fblog%2Fbible-verses-for-the-loss-of-a-parent&media=https%3A%2F%2Fbiblenudge.com%2Fblog%2Fbible-verses-for-the-loss-of-a-parent%2Ffeatured.jpg&description=Bible%20verses%20for%20the%20loss%20of%20a%20parent) ## Related Articles - [Bible Verses for the Death of a Mother: Comforted After His Mother's Death](https://biblenudge.com/blog/bible-verses-for-death-of-a-mother): Your mother has died. Genesis records Isaac still needing comfort for his mother, with Psalm 34:18, John 19, Proverbs 31 in its setting, and readings for her funeral. - [Bible Verses for the Death of a Father: Where Joseph Wept](https://biblenudge.com/blog/bible-verses-for-death-of-a-father): Your father has died. Genesis 50 sets down a son's grief for his father at length, with Psalm 34:18, readings for his funeral, and help if he was hard to love. - [Bible Verses for the Loss of a Sister: Miriam, Martha and Mary, and the Person Who Shared Your Childhood](https://biblenudge.com/blog/bible-verses-for-the-loss-of-a-sister): Your sister has died. Psalm 34:18 for tonight, Miriam and the sisters of Bethany, words for twins and younger siblings, and readings for her funeral.