"COMFORTING A HURTING FRIEND"

by David Busic

Physical pain is effective because it forces the body to stop other activities and pay attention to the reason for the pain.  Pain tells us something is wrong and we need to give attention to what ails us before it begins to seriously affect something else.

If basketball players twist an ankle, they have to leave the game and treat it until it heals.  Otherwise, they could hurt themselves worse.

Leprosy, or what is now called Hansen's disease, is a cruel illness, because it destroys our bodies by creating a defective pain system.  It's cruel because it is largely a painless disease. It primarily acts as an anesthetic, numbing the pain cells of our hands, feet, nose, ears, and eyes. 

We have terrible images of leprosy from movies like Ben Hur, and we see people without fingers and hands and terrible ulcers and sores all over their bodies- and we think leprosy caused those things.  But now we know that in 99% of the cases, Hansen's disease only numbs the extremities.  The destruction then comes to the body because the warning system of pain is gone.

In villages in Africa persons with Hansen's disease have been known to reach directly into a charcoal fire to pick up a dropped potato because nothing in their body told them not to do that.  Nothing triggers the brain of someone with leprosy that pain is in the body. 

Leprosy victims in India have been known to work all day gripping a shovel with a protruding nail or to casually walk on splintered glass.  The daily routines of life grind away at their hands and feet with no warning system.  But because they don't know they're hurting their bodies they continue their activity until their body parts develop gangrene and literally begin to fall off.

The point is that nothing unifies our bodies like the pain system.  When I have an infected wound, believe me, my whole body knows something is wrong.

In college I played on a competitive softball team where you were expected to sacrifice your body for the good of the team.  I was playing left field.  Someone hit a low, twisting line drive down the left field line.  I dove for it and caught it, but paid the price, because I dove into a sticker patch.  A few days later I woke up with a terrible fever, shaking with chills, until I could get something to fight the infection.  My whole body was affected by a few tiny stickers in my leg.

Pain plays an important part in our survival.  But when we ignore cries of pain, or grow so callous and numb that we let one part of our body decay unnoticed, the body destroys itself.

Wolves have been known to devour one of their own hind legs when it grows numb in the winter cold.  The numbness has interrupted the unity of the body; evidently they no longer perceive the leg as being connected.

Pain is also important to pay attention to in the spiritual realm. There are cries of pain from the Body of Christ.  The unemployed, the divorced, the widowed, the bedridden, the sick, the lonely, the grieving, the aged-all experience suffering.  What do we do when we hear those cries? Do we ignore them?  Or, like physical pain in the body, are we to pay attention to those cries, and help bring healing to the Body?

The Bible is clear.  We are to bear one another's burdens. That's a part of what it means for us to be a Lion-Lamb Community. We are to comfort others as Christ has given comfort to us. Your hard time becomes my hard time.  We join hands in the journey.

When you succeed, I succeed.  When you suffer, I suffer. But we do it together.  We share it together.  And we do it, not so much in our wisdom or our words, but in our availability, our understanding, and through our presence.

That's what koinonia is all about.  Koinonia means fellowship, but not generic fellowship.  It is CHRISTIAN fellowship.  It is the business of burden-bearing.  Koinonia says that when you need me . . . I'll be there.  Support in suffering is at the heart of what it means to share life together in community.

The word for "comfort" in this passage is paraclesis.  It is the same root word as the name Jesus used to describe one of the purposes of the Holy Spirit in our lives (Paraclete). I will be a comforter, one who comes alongside to give help.  And so as God comes alongside you, now you are able to come alongside another.  As the Comforter is at work within you, so you also can be of comfort to those around you.

We are called to bear one another's burdens.  To mourn with those who mourn. To be a follower of Jesus means to come alongside people who are hurting and find ways to help them walk even through the valley of the shadow of death.  We are called to do this.

But how?

What can we do?

What can we say that will make a difference?

What if we do or say the wrong thing?

I recently heard someone say: "I want to help when my friends are hurting, but I freeze up because I don't know HOW.  So I withdraw, and then I feel guilty because I've let them down."

I think a lot of people share her experience.

The truth of the matter is there is very little we can do or say to "fix" someone's problems or change the circumstances that have caused his or her suffering.  But there ARE specific things we can do that will help them survive the pain, process it more effectively, and be the pain network God has called us to be.

So how can we help a hurting friend?

1.  Offer the ministry of presence.

I sometimes walk into a hospital room, or a living room, after a tragedy, and wonder: What can I say right now? What am I supposed to do to help take their pain away or at least ease their suffering?

            After years of thinking about that I've come to the conclusion that there are no words for that.  You can't reverse what has happened in their life.  You're not going to have the magic words.  In fact, what I've found is that the most significant thing you can do to bring healing in their lives is not to say anything at all, but just to be there.

It's called the ministry of presence.  But that is so powerful! Just to be present in the room with folks who are hurting is an act of grace.  They remember that.  Very often they do not want you to say anything other than: "I care about you.  I love you.  I'm hurting for you.  I'm crying with you." And that's it!

There've been times when I've been in the living room with families right after a crisis and one person there just keeps talking and talking and talking.  They think if they say more things, it's going to make it better.  But it usually makes it worse.  I have often wanted to say: "Would you please just stop talking and be here for them?" Sometimes less is more.  The ministry of presence is just being there.

Remember, we can't fix their problem.  We're not God.  God is the healer.  God brings the restoration.  But we can be his agents of comfort and encouragement.When God wants to hug someone, he always sends one of his followers to put his arms around them. 

Offer the ministry of presence.

2.     Practice simple acts of kindness.

People who are suffering are very often under enormous stress in their personal lives.  Things that were normal routines before suddenly seem like huge burdens: preparing meals, cleaning house, running errands.

When I was pastoring in Kansas City, one of the men in our church became sick with throat cancer.   Another man in the church wanted to help, but didn't know what to do.  So one day this man (who happened to be a surgeon) took off work, hauled his lawn mower over to the sick man's house, and mowed his yard.  He didn't ask for permission.  He didn't ask for thanks when he was done.  He just came and did it.  The wife of the sick man later said it was an unbelievable relief and that she felt like he was helping to carry her burden.

I heard of another lady who called a friend when her husband was going through cancer treatments.  She said: "I'm coming over to your house. I don't need to talk to you.  I don't want you to entertain me. What I want you to do is have all your dirty clothes in a bag next to the front step.  I'm not even going to ring the doorbell.  I'm going to come by and pick them up. I'm going to do your laundry through all this time of Jay's illness."

You can't know what that feels like, unless you've been there.  It is a balm to someone's hurting heart.  Those little acts of kindness, the cards and letters, the flowers and the meals, all become an opportunity to help those who are hurting.

I have decided that if I am going to make a mistake, it will be in trying to do too much, rather than too little!  Practice simple acts of kindness. 

3.     Let them vent.

First of all, just let them talk. That is so important when someone is hurting.  Just call them up.  You don't have to say very much.  They just need to talk to someone.

Don't forget, hurting people are touchy people.  Whether wounded in body or spirit, hurting people are living on the raw edge.  They're capable of lashing out angrily even at people closest to them.

Marriages and other close relationships sometimes crack under the strain of suffering, often because of what somebody said or didn't say at the right moment.   Even their faith in God may be stretched to the breaking point.

Again, don't think that you have to have all the answers.  But sometimes hurting people need to "talk it out" with a friend they can trust to REALLY hear them.  That's one of the important ways in which we sort through the broken pieces of our lives and begin to put them back together again.  We need to talk with somebody who will listen without censoring or lecturing us for outbursts of anger.

Grieving is the human response to suffering.  And while it is a process with a degree of predictability, it is never easy.

First comes shock, that paralyzing experience of bewildered numbness. That is followed by denial: "This can't be happening to me!"  And what follows is often chaotic, messy, stressful, exhausting, and emotionally explosive. People are capable of saying the most outrageous things when trapped in the quicksand of destructive feelings.  But let them vent.  It's part of the process. There is no pain-free shortcut to reaching the end of grieving, which is acceptance.

Angry and bitter feelings are usually disguised in the form of classic "why" questions:

§  Why is this happening?

§  Why has God allowed this?

§  What have I done to deserve this?

§  Why is God punishing me?

Those are dangerous questions to try and answer, because rarely is there an obvious, honest answer.  And trying to answer the questions will often lead to more confusion.  Most of the times the questions themselves are simply cries of pain, not a serious invitation to abstract theological discussion. People don't need a lecture on the meaning of suffering when their hearts are breaking.

Job could have done without some of the pious answers that came from his well-meaning friends. All of the answers could have even been true, but Job didn't need to hear any of them.  He needed their love, not their value judgments. In fact, it appears as if God judged THEM for trying to offer simple solutions to things that were beyond their comprehension.

Don't try to answer "why" questions when friends are grieving.  Give them your God-centered, loving self.  Listen to them.  You don't even have to defend God.  God can take care of himself.

4.  Walk with them through their grief.

Remember to follow through when the crowds go away.  After a death someone might call the grieving person for several weeks.  Then after everything dies down, it feels like the whole world has forgotten you.

One person who has experienced a great deal of suffering said to me: "I understand.  I mean, everyone has a life.  You just keep going.  You've got other things that you've got to do in your life.  But it felt very, very lonely at those times for myself and for my children when people stopped calling.  The best friends were the folks who called at three months, at six months, and at anniversaries and at key events.  They would call and just listen."

People are sometimes afraid to ask questions after the fact for fear they may open up old wounds.  If I ask you to tell me about your child, then you might start crying and that's a bad thing (we think).  But the truth is that is a very, very good thing.  Sometimes people feel like they're not allowed to talk about their loved one who's died or bring up their difficult situation.  But what they need to talk about the most is the pain.

There are many mysteries in suffering we cannot understand.  But there is one that we can: The weight of a heartbreak shared with a loving friend is cut in half.  When the burden is shared with many friends, we can cope with almost anything.  We never feel more revitalized than when a friend loves us enough to walk with us in our pain.  This is one of the most important purposes of our small group ministry.

The apostle Paul wrote these words to the church in Corinth: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God" (1 Corinthians 1.3-4).

Sometimes God intervenes with direct miracles, giving supernatural strength to those in need.  But for the most part, he relies on us, his people, to do his work in the world.  We love each other, work for healing, and suffer with those who suffer.

            The next time you find yourself in a hard place, searching for comfort, and wondering where God is, Jesus may invite you to look around and find his warm embrace in the Body of Christ.  The next time you see a friend who is suffering, Jesus may just invite you to be the warm embrace!

            We comfort each other with the comfort we have received in Christ.  And when we do, we become the Body of Christ and he receives the glory!