COMFORTING THE SORROWFUL

We’ve all had our share of sadness in our lives. Whether what we have experienced could be called our “fair” share or if we believe we have received an “unfair” share of pain and suffering and disappointments – all that is always up for debate. It is also somewhat beside the point. The point being that no one goes through this life without dealing with bouts of sadness and sorrow.

It is during those times when we most need a shoulder to cry on, warm arms to embrace us and a sympathetic heart to feel for us. We don’t necessarily need someone who actually understands what we are experiencing at the moment because the truth is that no one can understand what we are going through even if that person had experienced something similar to what we are now having to deal with. Every situation is different because each of us is different.

When we are being comforted by another, we don’t expect that person to somehow take our sorrow and bear it for us nor even to remove it from our being. Neither is possible; and, even if it were, it should not be done. We need, as human beings, to experience sorrow just as we need to experience joy. We need to experience the ups and downs of life simply in order to be fully human.

That is not to say that we look forward to sorrowful times or even relish when they take hold of our lives. Only a fool suffers willingly or delightfully. When sorrow does fill our lives, perhaps even overwhelm us at the time, what we need most is someone to walk with us and help us through. Suffering alone is the most difficult form of suffering. Thus, when we have the opportunity to walk with someone who is sorrowful, we must reach out and grab the hand that needs to be held and walk the walk.

We need not say anything or do anything except be there. Nothing we can say or do will undo what caused the other to be sad and sorrowful in the first place. What happened happened. What has to happen next is the long and still sorrowful and painful walk from the darkness that now exists to the light that will eventually come.

Taking that walk, whether we are the one who is sorrowful or we are walking with the one who is, is never easy nor was it meant to be. Pain is pain and it hurts. It hurts when we are in pain and it hurts when someone we love is in pain. In fact, it is a sign to us of how much we love another when we feel pain for that person. And if we don’t feel pain or care about the pain? Well, we know what that says as well, don’t we?

That does not mean that we have to suffer with everyone in pain. It simply means that we need to recognize when another is in pain, when others are in pain, and do what we can do to comfort them. The most we sometimes can do is pray for them. But when we can be there in person to comfort them, we must.