NeuroDivine

When the Words Arrive Twice

This morning I wrote a poem for a grieving friend. The words came quickly—not rushed, but with that quiet certainty that sometimes accompanies deep care. They felt true. They felt needed. They felt like mine to offer.

And yet, before I pressed “publish,” I did what many of us do: I checked. A quick search, just to be sure I wasn’t echoing something too closely. Grief is a tender space, and I wanted to honour it with integrity.

Imagine my surprise when the exact words—not similar, not adjacent, but exact—appeared in a poem written by someone else.

For a moment, everything inside me stopped. Not in shame, not in frustration, but in that stunned stillness that comes when the world reveals a pattern you didn’t know you were part of.

So I closed the tab.
I breathed.
I prayed.
And I began again.

Because sometimes more than one person finds the same words. Not because we lack originality, but because certain truths are so deep they rise in many hearts at once. Grief has its own vocabulary—a shared human lexicon shaped by love, loss, and the longing to comfort. When we reach for language in those moments, we often touch the same currents.

For neurodivergent minds, this can feel especially intense. We notice patterns. We sense resonance. We hold words with a kind of reverence. So discovering that someone else has written the very line we thought was ours can feel like a collision of worlds—or a quiet confirmation that we are not alone in what we perceive.

Maybe the task isn’t to be the first to say something.
Maybe the task is to say it faithfully, truthfully, in the voice we’ve been given.

So I wrote again. Not to replace the first poem, but to honour the moment of recognition—that the words I found were already carrying someone else’s grief, and that Christ was inviting me to listen for the line that was mine to offer today.

Sometimes the Spirit speaks in echoes.
Sometimes the echo is the gift.

So here is the second poem, for James in his grief.

Christ in the waiting days,
lamp in the window’s glow;
holding our grief and fear,
steady in all we know.

Christ in the quiet room,
cards on the dresser stand;
gathering every sigh,
blessing with gentle hand.

Christ in the long farewell,
steadying trembling hearts;
bearing our weight of loss,
sharing the load He parts.

Christ in the days to come,
when all feels changed and strange;
walking the unseen road,
holding us through the change.

Text copyright 2026. Michael McFarland Campbell.