Comforting the Weeping in a Broken World
Over these past few days I have felt the pain of a fallen and broken world.
I spent time visiting with a man who has had MS for 32 years. He's blind, bedridden, and unable now even to push the button to hear the sound from his TV. I spent time praying with another man only just recently diagnosed with MS. On his countenance was written a fear of the unknown.
A couple approached me Sunday in the church where I preached, asking me to pray for their relationship. They could hardly look at each other; unhappiness with each other being written all over their faces. I reflected on two other couples I love whose marriages are in great peril; whose hope is nearly dashed.
I stayed with a couple who just recently lost their two year old grand-daughter. I sent an email to try to connect again to a man I dearly love; a man who some time ago left his faith, his wife and his many children.
And I came home to hear about, and then care for, a couple in our church--a dad and a mom--who this Sunday found their young son, dead.
It is a sad world full of weeping and troubled people who face griefs and burdens too deep for words. Not even sobbing tears are adequate to express the multiplied griefs of human experience in a broken world.
As a brother who loves and a pastor who cares, I wonder what love and comfort should look like in times like these. Can I offer a few suggestions to help you help others? These may be good for you to keep in mind as you respond to human grief in hard times:
1. Pray. Pray for the abounding mercies of God to sweep over the grieving in such measure that they will know that God is real, and that God is there. And pray that you will have great wisdom and exquisite skill to provide just the right mix of silence and hugs, along with still, quiet words to channel grace into their lives.
2. Stay. Stay near. Always be as close as you can be--not with words or noise; just with yourself, as a living and breathing and quiet presence of Christ to them. And stay empathetic. Consider what they may well be feeling. Think about the emotional, spiritual, relational, and physical implications of their trial and sorrow. Labor in your soul to enter into their grief and to feel it enough to have at least a whisper of awareness as to what they are feeling right now. Don't pretend to know what they are feeling (unless you've been right where they are), but do labor to feel what they're feeling as much as you can.
3. Display. Display the love of Jesus in real and tangible ways. Think over any possible needs the grieving may have, that you are able to meet, and make sure to provide for them. Consider what simple kindnesses can be offered over the next few days or weeks or even months, and extend them to the hurting as you're able. Meals, visits, cards, gifts, child care, phone and email reminders that you are thinking of them; whatever might display sincere affection and care, send it their way.
4. Say. After you've been there and loved them and cared for them and listened to them and treated them with kind compassion, be sure to say, to speak whatever truth from God that their souls need, and their spirits crave. Don't push this, or preach or hammer truth home. And certainly do not scold their grief or rebuke their doubts. But do encourage or comfort one another with words (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
I close with a prayer that I, that we, can be water of grace in people's lives today. There are many who thirst for comfort. May they find us to be streams of comfort flowing from the One who is the very River of Life.
I spent time visiting with a man who has had MS for 32 years. He's blind, bedridden, and unable now even to push the button to hear the sound from his TV. I spent time praying with another man only just recently diagnosed with MS. On his countenance was written a fear of the unknown.
A couple approached me Sunday in the church where I preached, asking me to pray for their relationship. They could hardly look at each other; unhappiness with each other being written all over their faces. I reflected on two other couples I love whose marriages are in great peril; whose hope is nearly dashed.
I stayed with a couple who just recently lost their two year old grand-daughter. I sent an email to try to connect again to a man I dearly love; a man who some time ago left his faith, his wife and his many children.
And I came home to hear about, and then care for, a couple in our church--a dad and a mom--who this Sunday found their young son, dead.
It is a sad world full of weeping and troubled people who face griefs and burdens too deep for words. Not even sobbing tears are adequate to express the multiplied griefs of human experience in a broken world.
As a brother who loves and a pastor who cares, I wonder what love and comfort should look like in times like these. Can I offer a few suggestions to help you help others? These may be good for you to keep in mind as you respond to human grief in hard times:
1. Pray. Pray for the abounding mercies of God to sweep over the grieving in such measure that they will know that God is real, and that God is there. And pray that you will have great wisdom and exquisite skill to provide just the right mix of silence and hugs, along with still, quiet words to channel grace into their lives.
2. Stay. Stay near. Always be as close as you can be--not with words or noise; just with yourself, as a living and breathing and quiet presence of Christ to them. And stay empathetic. Consider what they may well be feeling. Think about the emotional, spiritual, relational, and physical implications of their trial and sorrow. Labor in your soul to enter into their grief and to feel it enough to have at least a whisper of awareness as to what they are feeling right now. Don't pretend to know what they are feeling (unless you've been right where they are), but do labor to feel what they're feeling as much as you can.
3. Display. Display the love of Jesus in real and tangible ways. Think over any possible needs the grieving may have, that you are able to meet, and make sure to provide for them. Consider what simple kindnesses can be offered over the next few days or weeks or even months, and extend them to the hurting as you're able. Meals, visits, cards, gifts, child care, phone and email reminders that you are thinking of them; whatever might display sincere affection and care, send it their way.
4. Say. After you've been there and loved them and cared for them and listened to them and treated them with kind compassion, be sure to say, to speak whatever truth from God that their souls need, and their spirits crave. Don't push this, or preach or hammer truth home. And certainly do not scold their grief or rebuke their doubts. But do encourage or comfort one another with words (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
I close with a prayer that I, that we, can be water of grace in people's lives today. There are many who thirst for comfort. May they find us to be streams of comfort flowing from the One who is the very River of Life.
posted by Tim Shorey at
11:33 AM
3 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
Thanks for writing this Tim. It's hard to know how to react to any bad news sometimes, let alone mass amounts of it.
Thanks.
Thank you Pastor Tim. Life seems to be full of reminders that things are not as they should be. I am melancholy by temperament, and times like this tend to reinforce and deepen my sadness. Surely this is not what God had in mind when He reflected on His glorious work of creation-- "...and behold, it was very good."
Adam could not have understood just how much pain that single act of rebellion would introduce into our world...
Praise God for the GOSPEL, for redemption, and for HOPE that one day all will be right. I would not want to live in this world without the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
Mark T. was on my crew at Keswick several years ago. I must try (as you have written), to labor in my soul to enter into their grief. If I can carry a bit of their sadness through empathy, perhaps it may lessen the weight of it on them just a little.
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