When a Loved One Suffers
This is the sixth post in the series of Processing Emotional Pain. This is for those who walk beside one who suffers. Perhaps we suffer too. We certainly suffer as we watch our loved one experience and process their emotional pain.
We long to fix it, to hide it, to run away from it. We long to heal the pain so we don’t have to witness it any more or so that we can feel good that we helped someone. Walking beside someone who is suffering takes courage.
In Sharon Garlough Brown’s book, Shades of Light, Kit reminds Wren of the difficulty of walking beside someone without trying to fix them:
“It’s agonizing, watching people we love suffer, wanting to help, to do what’s loving and kind. But to love people well without taking responsibility for their well-being or for their choices, that’s hard to do. And it sounds like that’s part of what you’re trying to figure out, how to be alongside as a friend without trying to rescue him. Because you can’t rescue him. That’s not your job.”
It’s so hard to remember that it’s not our job. Our job is to “carry” our loved one to Jesus, like the friends who carried the paralytic in Luke 5:17-39. The friends couldn’t fix their paralytic friend but they carried him to Jesus and stayed as faithful companions.
Your loved one doesn’t need solutions, advice, or motivational speeches. She needs someone to sit next to her and hold her while she cries. She has probably heard, seen, read, or thought of already many of the things you may say but in her emotional pain, she is unable to do those things. The voice in her head telling her these things, what she should be or do more of or less of is likely part of what is causing her emotional pain. What she needs is a ride to the doctors, a hug, a simple meal, perhaps some medicine. More than anything, she needs love. She needs your gentle reminder that even if she is doing nothing at all, she is loved by and perfectly acceptable to Jesus.
Your loved one may not be fun to be around. He may not want to attend social functions and small talk might feel maddening. But he needs to know that he is loved and accepted even when he’s know fun, even when he has nothing good to say.
It is hard to not step into the place of God and attempt to heal our loved one and be there for them in ways only God can be. That is to set both of you up for further pain and disappointment. While walking beside your loved one, continue to place her in God’s hands the best you can. God doesn’t try to fix us, God meets us where we are, and He sticks with us. He walks with us down the lonely road. “There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” (Proverbs 18:24) We are being invited to walk beside our loved one, not fulfill their every need, not “fix” them, but to help carry them and welcome them, and all their messy emotions, into our space. Jesus did not shrink back from the sick of His time, and neither should we.
The burden we are asked to carry with our loved one may be hard and demanding. Simon of Cyrene, in Luke 23:26, was seized to help carry the cross of Jesus. It was sudden, unexpected, hard, heavy. He didn’t choose the moment, but he was chosen for the moment to walk alongside Jesus in a difficult and painful way. As Jesus’ disciples, we could be called into that same kind of service any time.
As a Christian, I believe Jesus was the Son of God. He could have called down legions of angels to rescue Him, instead, He not only chose to bear the burden of the cross, but even have someone help him do it. Jesus always taught by example. He shows in this example, how important it is to have help along the way.
The cross we bear when we walk with someone who is suffering is not likely to be light or easy. It is hard, messy work. Loving a person in emotional pain is draining and demanding. There is no quick, easy fix and you may often feel helpless in your loved one’s presence. Please remember to extend grace to yourself. You too need safe friends to help you process your own feelings. Remember that you too are now hurting as well.
In Mark 9:14-29 a father comes to Jesus with his son who is suffering. The father tells Jesus the story. Jesus not only listens but asks for more details and tells the father to bring him his son. This is what it’s like for us too. Jesus wants to hear our story about walking alongside one who suffers. He wants to know the details. He wants us to bring our suffering one to Him. Jesus wants to love and be with both of you. He wants to build our faith and calm our doubts and fears.
We may have to ask questions and listen to difficult answers. Like Jesus, we ask for the story because there is healing in the telling and being listened to, like when Jesus asks the father about his son – tell me, how long has this been happening to him (Mark 9:14-29). Jesus knew this man needed to be heard. We have our story and God wants to hear it. The father was walking alongside his suffering son, bringing him to Jesus. And Jesus wanted to know the father’s story too. Jesus wants to be with us as well as the suffering one. He offers His hand to us to raise us up.
Sometimes we are just called to sit with our loved one in some way and let them rest and heal. Elijah, who was being persecuted by Jezebel, ran off into the woods and begged God to let him die. Rather than fixing him or his predicament, God offered him rest. God allowed him to sleep, feeding him for two days. Later, they talked (1 Kings 19:1-8). Sometimes, that is all that is required of us – to “sit vigil” with our loved one allowing them space to feel and process their pain and nourish them with presence.
It is important to remember that your role is as a companion to walk beside. You are not a mental health professional, and if you are, you are not in that role with a friend or family member. Rather than trying to fix, you are called to come with love, trying to understand.
You may have experienced your own emotional pain and known many others. But don’t make assumptions about what the person is feeling or what the person needs. Processing emotional pain is not one-size-fits-all. Everyone is different with varying needs and differing pasts. What helped one person may not help the next.
Like Jesus was with the father of the suffering boy, be present and listen. Assure your loved one that you want to hear what they’re going through. It may not be an easy listen, but there is healing in telling our stories. You may not get the whole story and you may be tempted to fill in the blanks (I can’t count the number of times I’ve done this). It’s not necessarily your place to know the whole story. God knows it.
Embrace the complexity of your loved one’s pain. Each situation is unique. What works for one individual may not work for another. You may want to recommend various things to your loved one such as medication, exercise, diet, prayer, Scripture, meditating on Scripture and healthy leisure. All are proven helps, but remember you are not there to fix and everyone is different. It is usually a unique combination of these things that helps your loved one.
As one who has suffered myself, I both appreciated and resented suggestions. No matter who or what or when it was suggested, I always voiced a reason why it wouldn’t work for me. That was one of my symptoms, the negative thinking. Thinking I was broken beyond repair and I was unique from all others. Thinking that even if it worked for everyone else on the planet, it certainly wasn’t going to work for me. Be prepared to just listen patiently and let the suggestions sit. I may have objected, but I still heard and processed and, in my own time, I often would explore.
It is a helpless feeling, this waiting with the person while they heal, hoping they heal, not knowing the future. There is a scene in Sharon’s book where Wren’s Mom, Jamie, is processing her daughter’s hospital stay.
“Her daughter was in a psychiatric hospital. Her daughter was suffering from a mental illness. There was nothing she could do to fix it, nothing she could do to alleviate the pain, nothing she could do. You can pray, some would reply. You can trust God. She did. But that didn’t mean he would fix it, either.”
Jamie, like us, felt helpless. She knew that there is no guarantee that our illnesses and pains, or those of our loved ones would be healed on this side of heaven. They might be, but they might not be. Jesus wasn’t spared the cross, and we aren’t always spared our suffering. God’s choice is to be next to us instead. He helps us to see our loved ones and ourselves as He sees us “in all the fullness and potential that He has placed within us.” Matt Tommey in Unlocking the Heart of the Artist. The same way Jesus saw Peter as foundational to the the church while knowing also that he would deny Him three times. The same way that God saw the Prodigal Son.
We may think we aren’t doing much when we simply show up and walk beside our loved one, holding them in prayer, listening, praying, suffering alongside them but I have to agree with Vincent Van Gogh on this one:
“The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” – (as quoted by Emily P Freeman in A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live)
Jesus’ simple request, the same one he made to the father of the afflicted child in Mark 9:14-29 is “Bring him to me.” And so, carry your loved one to the feet of Jesus and sit by their side and let the beauty and love of the Lord feed both of you.
