{"id":885,"date":"2009-09-15T21:23:36","date_gmt":"2009-09-16T02:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/2009\/09\/15\/comforting-the-hurting\/"},"modified":"2009-09-15T21:23:36","modified_gmt":"2009-09-16T02:23:36","slug":"comforting-the-hurting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/15\/comforting-the-hurting\/","title":{"rendered":"Comforting the Hurting"},"content":{"rendered":"

My friend Craig wrote last week<\/a> about the (short) life of his daughter in connection with a Dallas Morning News story<\/a> on a couple who enjoyed every day with a son they knew would not live long.  The story prompted Craig to say more about his daughter than I recall him writing in the past.  His words provoke thoughts in a few directions, but one that I thought I would follow up on here is the unkind comments that people made to them.  He wrote:<\/p>\n

\n

We were thankful that there were a few people here who hurt with us, but so many seemed to dismiss our situation as nothing too serious. Perhaps some just didn’t know what to say, which is common. But in many cases, it was simply a cultural callousness toward these types of things.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Craig doesn’t say so explicitly, but some of those who hurt him and his wife were believers.  These are people like you and me, and I think the errors were more out of ignorance than malice.  The question in my mind, then, is how we respond in the loss of a loved one, including a child. Craig is not the first person I have heard express dismay over what believers said at the death of a child.<\/p>\n

Why is it that we are so ignorant in this area?  Perhaps it is because we have little experience, because we are not taught, and because we tend to avoid talking about such subjects.  In other situations, we learn from teaching “in the moment,” but I would guess that little is taught at such a sensitive time.  Some probably learn from their mistakes, but since confrontation isn’t usually possible or appropriate, many may never realize the wounds their words made.  Probably the ones who learn the most are those who are already suffering; they can certainly apply what they learned the next time they have the opportunity to comfort a hurting friend.<\/p>\n

I wonder if there is another way.  I wonder how we might learn what to say and when.  There probably are books on the subjects, but I don’t have any on my shelf and I can’t name any.  Most of us probably don’t have time to read one right now anyway.  But maybe there are some suggestions that those who have learned can share.<\/p>\n

What makes this matter different than some others is that it is not necessarily about truth, but about speaking truth at the right time.  God is always sovereign, but there may be a time when we should not speak of it.  God is always loving, but “a word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver” (Prov 25:11).  As Job said, “How painful are honest words!” (Job 6:25).  But the gentle and compassionate Servant could say that “the Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary” (Isa 53:4).<\/p>\n

So I wonder if I might by this post 1) raise awareness that too many people say hurtful things to hurting people; 2) provoke you to think about being prepared; 3) solicit some advice for me and others as to how best be prepared for situations like these.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friend Craig wrote last week about the (short) life of his daughter in connection with a Dallas Morning News story on a couple who enjoyed every day with a son they knew would not live long.  The story prompted Craig to say more about his daughter than I recall him writing in the past. \u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,15,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-family","category-friends"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}