Suffering often happens so suddenly. One moment things are ‘normal’. The next moment they changed unspeakably and the world is a different place. This is hard when it happens to us. But it’s also hard when it happens to those around us. What do we say? When do we say? Sure, we offer all kinds of help in practical ways. But, words – should we use them? Which ones should we use?
Here are a couple of thoughts. I’m thinking here about Christians speaking to Christians (to keep the discussion concise), rather than choosing silence alone.
The Cost of Conversation
First, it’s much easier not to speak. Speaking involves personal engagement and demonstrates our stake in the relationship. Sometimes it’s easier not to try and join in the task of carrying the burdens of others. They are heavy and difficult, after all and life is hard enough. Conversation with suffering people is hard work. They might not want to talk but need me to be there. I don’t know where the conversation might go or for how long it will continue. The only possible reason I have for initiating a conversation with this person is because I care about them. This conversation is going to cost me. It’s not going to be encouraging. It’s likely to feel awkward. It is easier to duck and weave and get out of there. Maybe I’ll make a casserole instead.
It’s useful to know in advance that I will be tempted to not engage. I will excuse myself in all kinds of ways and try and make up for it in practical ways, convincing myself that it means more. To be silent may be wise. But it might just be cowardly. Speaking, listening out of love costs.
Words and the Gulf of Grief
Second, I don’t have anything worth saying. There’s truth to that. Words can’t staunch wounds or heal broken hearts. In fact, in newly scalded grief, words cannot often be easily heard and processed. The whole world seems an infinite distance from the grieving; the words that fall on our ears in an alien language.
While this is true, we have genuine hope in Jesus. And we can put this into words which gesture beyond our little words to the grand realities of knowing and being known by Jesus himself. Our suffering is genuine and painful. Our hope is genuine and comforting. The two don’t fight against each other, as though hope can take away the pain, or pain can defeat the hope, they sit next to each other. Our words can bring these important things to mind. Our words can matter and even be useful.
Wisdom may lie not in one muttered, embarrassed platitude, but in an ongoing sprinkling of carefully constructed sound bites. Not grasping for the words as we need them, but pondering the best way to speak in advance. Speaking slowly, quietly and concisely, knowing that words don’t fix, but that we need words spoken into the dark silence of our broken hearts, the way we need time and care and love.
Love Despite Awkwardness
Third, I am clumsy. I can’t do this well. Someone else should and will. I’ll leave it to them. The problem with this is that I can’t do it well because I don’t do it. I’m not skilled at this for the same reason as I am not skilled at sky diving. I never do it. And were I to do it I would be trying to get the process over with and not undertake it wisely and prayerfully as a good work placed before me to do for Jesus’ glory. The only way we get through the awkward, unskilled clumsiness, is to dare to do it, even when it doesn’t quite fit and even stalls the conversation. We get better at it by making the mistakes. We’ll see and feel and know our own insufficiency and it will push us to prayer. The reason we quote Romans 8:28 to each other at our worlds’ end is that we don’t have our own versions of this, our own ways of putting it. Quoting Scripture to someone works best if it arises out of our own hearts, and we live it and speak it in our own words. If we never think about how God is master of our lives, even the awful parts, we will be utterly unprepared to speak about it, and our partly digested offerings will easily offend.
Imperfect Words – Not Perfect Silence
Fourth, I will offend them. Yes, yes I will. Sometimes the words are fine, the timing is perfect, the tone and manner of delivery is impeccable. But suffering is a volatile place. What is genuinely encouraging for one person is deeply offensive to another. What offers meaning and hope for a person on Tuesday morning may be repellent on Wednesday afternoon. There are all kinds of lists on the internet to guide you on this and help you craft and frame words in such a way as to not give any offense to anyone. And the internet is wrong. Speaking to someone requires risk. It’s only worthwhile if you love them and are prepared for a backlash that might be a result of you being clumsy or just of them being hurt and speaking out of their suffering.
If you say nothing, you almost certainly won’t be hurt. If you and I as followers of Jesus love someone though, we will be silent, we will be helpful, we will accept their suffering and how they are in their suffering, we will do each of these as the situation requires and make all kinds of mistakes along the way but we will also speak.
Christian Love speaks. And it speaks Christian hope to pain-ridden hearts in Christian ways.
Image: detail from William Frederick Yeams, Shakespeare’s heroines: Cordelia
