Part one…How to be a Friend to Those Who are Suffering.
Last week Joyce Meyer mentioned Job in a sermon. It got me thinking. Thinking about hardships and when people you love either fail to show up or hurt you when they do. Because sometimes I am the friend who fails to show up and sometimes I’m the friend experiencing deep hurt only to look up and realize everyone has scattered.
As I began to meditate on these realities, I stumbled across a great article on Job’s friends. I thought…there’s a message there.
Little did I know, God was going to give me a chance this week to apply what He was trying to teach me. I’m not so sure I did a great job applying His truth. It’s like He gave me the answer to a pop quiz. But before I knew it, the quiz was over and I was still trying to process what had just happened. I got caught off guard, even though He had just taught me the truth!!
In the article, the author suggested Job’s friends did three things right when confronted with Job’s overwhelming suffering.
1. They showed up.
When they heard of Job’s sufferings, they came to him. (Job 2:11)
2. They wept with him.
…they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. (Job 2:12)
3. They sat QUIETLY beside him.
They did not say anything to him for SEVEN days because they saw how great his suffering was. (Job 2:13)
(author unknown, article: www.gotquestions.org/Jobs-friends.html)
There’s a lot of wisdom to glean from Job’s friends.
It highlights the comfort we find in friends showing up in the middle of our devastation. Don’t underestimate the power and comfort of just showing up.
We should consider the importance of sharing their grief by physically weeping with those who weep. In this way, we intentionally share/carry their burden. And also alleviate the burden of them having to justify their sorrow. This also helps us not minimize their sorrow but instead attest to the depth of the grief.
They tore their clothes as a symbolic gesture to the shredding of his soul. I can’t imagine tearing my clothes. However, I can imagine the comfort of such a dramatic expression in light of such devastating loss.
Finally, we should consider the healing effect of quietly mourning beside someone. No rush or need to put the grief away. Just giving grace to experience the depth of the loss and testifying to depth of the pain.
For days, these truths have swirled in my mind, wrestling over what to do with the implications. And then Monday night God gave me the chance to apply the truths He had revealed. We gathered in a room full of godly men and women. We rallied beside a dear friend experiencing deep hurts. We showed up. He shared his burden. We grieved his hurt. We sat quietly and listened.
What we did was good. And I realized if we do nothing more than…
- Show Up
- Weep with them
- Be quiet
….then we have done a good thing.
But then, I noticed we were confronted with the same temptation that confronted Job’s friends.
But we’ll talk about that next time. Until then… think about showing up, weeping and being quiet.
XOXO
Dana
Thanks Dana. I love this reflection.
I wanna be a friend like that. Help me Lord to know when I need to show up, weep and then just be silent (really hard for me). Keep up the Good works Dana
Thank you Dana-I love this insight and pray I can be better in responding with silence-I’m so prone to give emotional opinions!❤️
Amen. Lord, teach me to offer more tears, less opinions.