Something Light and Something Heavy

What better way to show you the conflicting (or maybe more complimenting) part of my nature than to offer two different types of posts, one light and fluffy that leaves you smiling and the other deep and heavy that makes you think.

Laughter

Yesterday I embarked on an adventure with my “Old Lady Friends”. I use this term loosely because they really aren’t old but in comparison to me and the average age of most of my compatriots they are older, and married, and have kids, some in college, therefore they are called the “Old Lady Friends” with great love and laughter. Well we all piled into one car and headed for lunch and some shopping. After much laughter and absolute craziness we were scouting out desert and I suggest a place called Javalato, where they serve coffee (java) and gelato (lato). As we walk in facing the gelato display case with about 20 perfectly formed gelato tubs, one of the ladies, Angel (her alias to protect her identity), says rather loudly “What is that? Pudding?”. The face on the teenage boy behind the counter was PRICELESS. We laughed, he snickered, and we all bought our pud . . . gelato. I love my “Old Lady Friends”.

Tears

A while back I went to dinner with a few friends. We were doing what girls do best and sharing with each other what was going on in our lives at the time. I shared some struggles I was dealing with and was honest about the pain that I was feeling. My friend then shared some of her struggles and I remember remarking that my issues were nothing in comparison to hers. And then she said the most encouraging thing to me. She looked me straight in the eyes and said with complete compassion “Pain is pain.”

In that moment she offered me what I had been wanting, the freedom to hurt over what I was going through. The freedom to not have to explain my pain, or qualify it, or even compare it to someone else, but to be able to say I was hurting and that was enough. I was allowed to hurt for whatever reason. I was free to say that this was difficult for me and hard and that was all that mattered.

After thinking about this for a while I realize that often when we are hurting that is really all we want. We just want someone to say it is ok for us to hurt; it is ok for us to be in pain, and that while they might not understand the situation they understand that for us, in that moment, it is hard and we are hurting.

So often we don’t know how to help someone in pain. Do we offer an ear; do we point out how it could be worse so they get perspective; do we pull out our trusty list of responses and offer the great hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that all trials produce strength; do we try to logically fix their problem? None of these are bad or wrong. I’ve done all of these in an effort to help. But do we ever let someone just mourn what is a difficult time for them? Do we acknowledge that they are in pain and it is often times unbearable? Do we give them the freedom to hurt and to cry and to say that no matter what else comes my way in life, right here, right now, this is the worst I have ever had it and it hurts so much that I don’t know how to deal with it? Do we give them the freedom to have their own pain, separate from any that we have known?

Even in the Christian community this is a tough area. We want to give encouragement, we want to offer hope, we want to print out a list of uplifting verses to show them they “this too shall pass” (and it will eventually, thankfully). But is there a moment when the verses that champion perseverance and hope, the expectedness of trials, and the good fruits of tribulations fall upon ears that aren’t ready to hear? Are we in such a hurry to diagnose and fix a problem, or at least offer a reason for it, that we forget the human being before us that is hurting? Are we so quick to offer spiritual healing that we forget the healing of a hug, the comfort of a silent listener, and the compassion of someone to cry with you?

I’m not saying to forgo a response that is based on God’s Word. Not at all. I find myself turning to God in every hurt; it is the only place I can often turn. But I’ve never been met by God with a game plan in the midst of my tears. I’ve never been shamed because I feel pain for something that is nothing in comparison to what others are going through. If anything I have been met by a God that knows my heart and how it is breaking at the moment. I am met by a God that wept.

The shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35 “Jesus wept.” We don’t get a peak inside Christ’s heart at that moment, but we do see His response to what He was experiencing. His friend Lazarus was sick and Mary and Martha have called on Christ to come quickly. Jesus, in His own wisdom, decided to wait and came only after Lazarus died. He arrives to a mournful place as they have already laid Lazarus in the tomb. Both Martha and Mary approach Christ and lament about the death of their brother, the inability of Christ to be there to heal him, and they both express faith that Christ is Lord. And so in the midst of this lesson on faith and power over death, I find not just an Almighty Lord but a compassionate Christ who recognizes that pain is true for these women.

John 11: 32- 35
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. "Where have you laid him?" he asked. "Come and see, Lord," they replied.
Jesus wept.

Now many people have spoken of why Christ wept. I’m focusing on the fact that He did. Christ, the Lord, who would soon raise Lazarus from the dead and give eternal life to all, wept. He knew what was to come, He knew that this too shall pass and that joy abundant would soon fill the place, and yet He wept.

Often times I feel like Mary, throwing myself at the feet of Christ, pouring my pain and heart out to Him, lost in the brokenness of my heart, in the unknown of my limited humanity, hurting, crying, broken. And instead of a God who answers with “Katie, why are you crying? Why do you have such little faith? I am the Lord, I have it under control.” (and He has every right to say this to me, because it is all true), instead I am met by a Lord that weeps alongside me. He sees my heart, He knows my pain, and He meets me right there in the midst of all that despair and shows me through His tears that I am not alone, I am free to hurt, He knows the pain is real, He meets me in my tears.

The freedom to hurt is the freedom to be human. It is the freedom to let God come in and hurt alongside us, to comfort us, and to begin to heal us. Pain is pain, and Christ has wept alongside Mary and Martha and He has wept alongside me.