I got a lot of wonderful, positive response to yesterday’s post. And I must admit, it brought me a lot of joy to hear people say they could relate to my post and also to have people continue the conversation with me. When I restarted this blog, I was hesitant to trust that God had a plan for it. There was a large part of me that was reluctant to add more words to the chaos of the Internet. Nothing I am saying is particularly revelatory or original; there are entire books written about these topics by people much more knowledgeable than me.
Writing yesterday’s post opened a door in my heart that cannot be shut. God’s affirmation of my blog through appreciative texts and constructive comments was so encouraging and I cannot express how grateful I am that people allowed God to speak through them to me.
I want to address one of the points someone brought up to me after reading my post. Regarding how people respond to sadness, this person commented that people’s discomfort does not always stem from a desire for the sad person to “get over it,” but is sometimes rooted in an inability to take away the pain of someone you love. I admit I didn’t address this point; frankly, it didn’t even come to mind.
[Aside: this is one of the great things I believe God is doing through this blog- He is starting conversations, and I can be more than just a weirdo who sits behind her computer dropping wisdom bombs on people and then feeling proud of what I’ve done. God did not make room for me to bring my throne.]
I think this is an extremely important point, and one that I’ve been meditating on all day. It is really hard for us as humans to just stand by and watch other people be sad. We want to help them, we want to heal them, we want to fix them. And this is a normal, valid response to have when we see our loved ones in pain. However, I don’t think it’s the response our loved ones always need. There are times when people just need to feel upset, or angry, or frustrated; we need to ride out the emotion, if you will, until it tires out.
When we are the ones watching our friends or family experience the pain, it can be hard to not try and fix the situation for them. This is where we, as a community, must allow ourselves to be humbled and realize that we cannot be the ones to fix our friends. That role is reserved for God. All we can do is meet our loved ones where they are at, then grieve and pray with them. It’s infuriating to think that we do not have the answer, or that we lack the ability to make someone feel better; isn’t providing comfort one of the fundamentals of relationships? But what is more loving than truly being with the person and feeling their pain with them, rather than busying ourselves with “finding the answer?”
I am definitely guilty of this. I do not enjoy seeing a problem without trying to solve it. Perhaps, though, this is where our error begins- seeing this sadness as a problem to solve. It is not a problem, it is a transient state of mind, and it too will pass. It’s uncomfortable, and it’s messy, but it’s not broken. The hardest thing to do when someone is in pain is nothing. But when we humble ourselves to empathy, we open our hearts and words for God to use as comfort and encouragement; and this, my friends, is where the true healing is found.