A few thoughts on friendship in sorrow:
How often do we hear the casual question, "How are you"? And how often do you notice the person asking actually waiting for the answer? How often is interest communicated? How often do we dishonestly answer, "I'm fine" or "God is good all the time," because we don't think the one asking really has the time or wants to know. Or maybe you're worried that an honest answer will be judged and condemned. Maybe the message sent to you was that it is wrong or sinful to feel sorrow or anxiety about a trying situation. Maybe your suffering has gone overlooked, minimized, and unsupported.
But the body of Christ is uniquely equipped to sit with friends who are grieving and suffering, if we can learn to lean into the discomfort and awkwardness, if we can admit we don't know, and dispose of our inclination to fix what is too big for us. Just being in the moment with our sorrowing and suffering friends can be most healing. Then we can with confidence offer what and *Who we do know.
Here is how Scripture informs us about walking through sorrow in the community of the saints: II Cor. 1: 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
Because in our sufferings, we have been comforted by God, we are able to sit with others who are experiencing their own pain. Therefore, we can empathize. We can mourn with those who mourn and weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15). And we can point our suffering loved ones to our merciful and wonderful counselor.
Even in those times when our sorrows are self-inflicted, and the consequences of our sins are too much for us to bear, we can recall and know that Jesus, Who entered into our suffering and was tempted in every way that we are, desires us to run to Him and not away from Him for fear of truly deserved rejection. In those times and kinds of sorrow, the prophet Isaiah, looking forward to our redemption in Christ, reminds us to take comfort and speak it to those friends suffering at their own hands.
“Comfort, comfort my people,”
says your God.
“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and announce to her
that her time of hard service is over,
her iniquity has been pardoned,
and she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.” Isa. 40:1-2
We are not left alone in an ocean of emotion to be swallowed up and drowned but we have a whole body who can come to the rescue if we just learn how, and if we just reach out for the help that is available from Christ's people, and in Christ, our ever-present Help in trouble.
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