Joy, Victory … Crap June 4, 2008

One of the battles I always fight when trying to comfort a hurting person is to understand their pain and allow them to feel their pain and process it in their own way, but to also want to tell them what I believe is true about them and their situation, as well as what God has to say about it (he speaks through verses I have hanging up in my cubicle) or through emails or through my own mind that tingles like it’s been electrocuted when I get a “communicado” from up there. How do I tell people the truth in a way that won’t encourage them to turn on me with a freezing stare and exclaim, “You just don’t get it!” Or in a way that doesn’t make me want to gag on the words I’m saying? When somebody is really down, how much is the right response “That sucks” and how much is it “This is actually going to become a beautiful story because God can put all this right and teach you to love him more while he’s doing it”? I wrote an email today to someone I love very much that was more along the lines of the second, and I’m wondering if I was too much “Yay God!” and not enough “Major freaking bummer.” I tried to keep it from sounding like anything akin to the prosperity gospel or the “everything is going to be alright” schtick, because if I’ve learned anything in my 28 years, it’s that things aren’t going to be alright anytime soon and that is a false hope that nobody should cling to. I want to see the tiny flashes of light in someone’s dark world, but not be flippant or condescending or mimimalize their stuff. Or, God forbid, misinterpret scriptures to make them think things are going to work out in no time. I just want to learn how to be a better friend in the dark times.