Tag: Pain

How To Respond When Someone Shares Their Pain

empathy-dictionary

We’ve all been there-we ask a routine question and someone refuses to play the social game.  

We say, “How are you?” and they answer honestly instead of with the obligatory, “I’m fine.  You?”

Suddenly the encounter has taken an unexpected turn.

“Oh, no!  I don’t know what to say,” you think.

It can end badly-both of you walking away uncomfortable and wary.

But it doesn‘t have to. There are ways to express compassion and empathy, words that can comfort and encourage.

What should you say when I, or anyone, shares their heart-their pain?

  • Acknowledge my pain. Don’t be silent or gloss over my declaration by changing the subject.  Silence often feels like disapproval and changing the subject feels like dismissal.  I have just entrusted you with something important, something it was hard for me to share, something that is a great burden on my heart-let me know you heard me.  Good responses that are always appropriate:  “I’m sorry”; “That must be hard”and “My heart hurts for you”.  In person, a hand on the arm or a hug is good.  Give me space to cry if that’s what I need to do.

 

  • Ask questions.  Not the who-what-when-where-why questions that fuel gossip and make good news stories.  But questions that can help me share more:  “Do you want to talk about it?” or “How can I help you?”.  It may take a few moments for me to answer-I may have to think about if I really do want to share more.  You may help me by asking, “What’s especially hard right now?”  

 

  • Accept that this hurts ME-even if you think it wouldn’t hurt YOU. Everyone’s story  is unique.  You may be more emotionally, physically, psychologically and spiritually resilient than me.  Great!  But this is MY story, and this hurts ME.  Please, please, please do not try to talk me out of my pain.  Please don’t toss Bible verses or platitudes at me seeing if they will stick.  Please don’t tell me about how YOU would handle my situation (unless I ask). And, more than anything, please do not turn my heartfelt sharing into a discussion of how my pain causes you pain.  It may be true, but now I feel guilty instead of supported.

 

  • Affirm me for sharing, for enduring and leave the door open for next time.  It takes courage and energy for me to share my pain.  Many days I gloss over inquiries because I’m just too worn out to spend the limited emotional energy I have left on the drama of sharing honestly.  If I risk it, it’s because I’m either desperate or I trust you.  Either way, let me know you appreciate my bravery.  Tell me that you see how hard it is and that just carrying on is an accomplishment.  Leave my heart better than you found it so I’ll be encouraged to share again.   

Brene Brown has done some amazing work in the area of shame, hurt, compassion and empathy.  I’ve found it valuable in my own valley and also instructive in serving others in theirs.  

This short video based on her work is incredibly helpful. Please take a moment to watch it:  Brene Brown on Empathy

brene-brown-on-empathy-image

 

 

Repost: Living Between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection

A close  family member is facing a difficult, scary and extensive surgery.

It’s one more reminder that we live in a broken world.  

The victory Christ gained is real.  But we do not yet have the full benefit of all its fruit.

We still face death.

We still bear pain.  

We still long for that day when ALL will be made right. 

Until then, we Live Between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

Lessons From a Midwife on Life, Death and the Power of Presence

A fellow “waiting” mom wrote this and gave me permission to share:

“I coached my oldest daughter through natural labor and childbirth on Wednesday night. She stayed at 9cm for 3.5 hours.

Towards the end she looked at me and said ‘I can’t do this, I’m not strong enough!’

I looked at her and said, ‘You can because you have your husband and me right here with you to give you our strength.’

We held her up while she rocked back and forth moving her little guy down into position.

While I was holding my daughter through such physical trauma I thought about how God held me up after the loss of her sister.

I didn’t have the strength to stand. I felt like I couldn’t do it.

But He held me.

He didn’t take the pain away but He held me up when my strength failed me.”

Her words brought light to my heart.  

Here was a mama who has faced life and death and learned something she was willing to share.

Her experience reminded me of this Brene Brown quote I had read months ago:

Faith isn’t an epidural.  It’s a midwife who stands next to me saying, “Push,  It’s supposed to hurt.” ~Brene Brown

As I reflected on my friend’s words and this quote, I realized there were some lessons here-for birth, for death and for grief.

A midwife does not deny the pain.

It hurts!

It hurts to give birth.  It hurts to say good-bye.  It hurts to carry grief everywhere I go.

When someone comes alongside and denies the truth of my pain, I shut down and stop listening.

But when they enter in and acknowledge my pain, I receive courage to continue pushing.

A midwife does not offer false hope.

She knows that there is no way through but through.  A midwife bears witness and lends strength but she doesn’t pretend it will be easy.

There are no shortcuts to birth and no detours for grief.  I can only face the sorrow, missing and hurt and keep going.

But the journey is easier when someone is willing to travel with me, to listen and to help bear the burden.

A midwife understands that though the pain is great and the process long, it will end.

It hurts.  But it won’t hurt forever.

She doesn’t throw that truth in the hurting mama’s face.  She whispers prayers for mercy.

For the profound wounds of life, there are no quick fixes.  There is no easy healing.

We endure because God through His Spirit lends us strength.

We make it through because Jesus promises to redeem and restore.

And because friends remind us with their presence that God is near.

kindness

What a gift are those friends who stay near when life is hard,

who choose to stick it out when pain makes us both uncomfortable

and continue to love and lend their strength when mine is gone!

Can’t Hide the Ugly

Yesterday I was impatient and ugly with someone I love.

When you are hurting, physically or emotionally or physically AND emotionally, you just don’t have the energy to hide the ugly.

But the pain didn’t create the ugly-it just revealed it.

And I am sorry to say that even burying a child did not cleanse me of some ugliness I wish I didn’t have in my heart.

I keep asking God to fill me with His love, mercy and grace.  And I am more full of those things than before.

But there is still plenty of (if not hate then) less-than-love, judgement and impatience. Trials don’t automatically lead to refinement or stronger faith.

Tribulation can drive someone away from God as easily as it can drive them to their knees.

If I’m not careful-if I’m not very careful-I can use my pain as an excuse for all kinds of bad behavior.

So I’m here to confess:  I am so, so sorry.

I’m sorry that when my glass gets tipped, anger and bitterness spills out. I’m sorry that I’m not more faithful to extend grace when I hope grace will be extended to me.  I’m sorry that speaking truth so that I prove my point and wound a heart is sometimes more satisfying than speaking truth in love.

I wish every  deed I did  and every word I spoke was full of life and never full of death.

I hate death.  I. HATE. death.

It has taken enough from me. And I want no part of it.

Father, I want to be a beacon of light and life.  Lord, make me so.  Fill me to overflowing with YOUR love, YOUR life, YOUR grace, YOUR mercy.  Left to myself I have no hope.  But by Your Spirit, it can be so.

When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realise that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find you have become men of mature character with the right sort of independence. And if, in the process, any of you does not know how to meet any particular problem he has only to ask God—who gives generously to all men without making them feel foolish or guilty—and he may be quite sure that the necessary wisdom will be given him.

James 1:2-5 PHILLIPS

 

Another Day

I wake and you are still gone.

The cats tap-tap-tapping on my arms and face declare the day has begun despite the dark and I need to climb out of bed.

Why?

What difference does it make?

I trudge downstairs, put the coffee on, feed the cats and settle into my chair to read and write.

Habits.

Routine carries me through the day.  There are things that need to be done.

The sun still rises-must be soon now because I hear the rooster’s escalating declaration that he, at least, can see the light.

One cat settles into my lap adding weight and warmth to the morning. I remember when I held you and your brothers and sister.  I never tired of that sweet bundle bearing down on my heart.

I would do anything to feel it again.

But that can’t be.  And I won’t hold your children either.

All of you was taken away.

Every last molecule, every last gene.

Nothing left but flat photos and memories that are increasingly difficult to piece together in rich detail.

The vital essence that sent shock waves through a room, the loud laugh, the snarky comments, the deep, deep voice that made you sound so serious-all gone.

Heaven is a real  place and I know you are there.

But I want you here.

I can’t help it.

All the theological arguments don’t fill the hole in my heart where you are supposed to be.

Shake it off.

Here’s the sun.

Get to it.

Another day.

 

 

The Shadowlands

 

Isn’t God supposed to be good? Isn’t He supposed to love us? Does God want us to suffer? What if the answer to that question is, ‘Yes'”? I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that He makes us the gift of suffering.

I’m not sure that God wants us to be happy. I think He wants us to be able to love and be loved. He wants us to grow-up. We think our childish toys bring us all the happiness there is and our nursery is the whole wide world. But something must drive us out of the nursery to the world of others and that something is suffering.

You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the sculptor carves forms of men. The blows of His chisel, which hurt so much, are what makes us perfect.

C.S. Lewis

Lewis referred to this life as “The Shadowlands”.  The place where we see the shape of the promise but not its substance.

I am caught between the world I live in and the world to come.  There is beauty in both, but only in Eternity will my heart be at home.

Right now, I am Living Between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection

not your best life

 

 

 

 

 

Loving the Wounded

God bless the inventor of Band Aids!

That little tacky plaster has soothed more fears and tears than almost any other invention in the world.

Skinned knee?  Put a BandAid on it.

Bee sting?  BandAid.

Tiny bump that no one can even see?  Oh, sweetie, let me give you a BandAid.

Simply acknowledging pain and woundedness is so often all that is needed to encourage a heart and point it toward healing.

It’s the same in the world of emotional, psychological and spiritual wounds.

But we have yet to invent the BandAid for those.

band aid and heart

Instead, frequently we ignore, refute, minimize and pass over the one in our midst who holds out a hand or a heart saying, “I have a boo boo.”

Believe me, I understand-so many of these wounds are incurable, they are uncomfortable to think about, hard to look at.compassion and stay with you

But often the only thing the hurting heart wants is acknowledgement, a moment of time, a face turned full into theirs, eye-to-eye and unafraid to remain alongside through the pain.

Just as a BandAid bears witness to the wound underneath, our compassionate presence can bear witness to the deeper wounds no one can see.

When we choose to lean in and love, to listen and learn, to walk with the wounded we give a great gift.

compassion is a choice

 

Broken Hearts, Beating Still

The events of this past week have thrown my body into a tailspin-like muscle memory acquired through repetitive action-I feel the terror of parents hearing the awful news that their child is gone.

It’s as if I am the one hearing the knock on the door.

As if I am the one absorbing the terrible blow.  

And I know what they don’t yet understand-there is no wonder drug or magic pill that can erase the pain.

There is no miraculous cure for a broken heart.  

I wrote this months ago, but this week has made it fresh again: 

When Dominic was born by c-section, they placed the epidural too high and I was unable to feel my chest rise and fall even though I continued to breathe.

It was a frightening experience. I WANTED to keep breathing-because I wanted to touch this new life coming into the world and into our family.

But when the deputy brought the news that Dominic had been killed, it felt like I stopped breathing and my heart stopped beating-and I would have welcomed both.

I wanted to escape the pain that filled my heart, my soul, my bones.

I think most bereaved mothers will tell you they have absolutely NO IDEA how their bodies continue to live and carry this heavy burden.

I do it for those still here and, having felt the pain of being left behind, my mama heart wants to spare the ones I love as long as I can.

But rest assured, it is a daily struggle to decide to go on.

heart_640

“Broken Hearts Still Beat”

BIRTH

I’m not breathing.
They assure me that I am.
My heartbeat thumps the truth for all to hear.
A welcome wail ushers his life into the spotlight of this wide world.

DEATH
I’m not breathing.
They assure me that I am.
My lungs draw air against my will and my better judgment.
An anguished cry marks the end of his earthly life.
I am breathing.
My body refusing to keep pace with my broken heart.

melanie desimone, november 7, 2014

My Cup Overflows

“You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” Psalm 23:5b

I remember standing in our field with my husband at sundown one day, thankfulness and grace and mercy and wonder flooding my heart-and I whispered, “surely my cup overflows!”

Surely, God’s hand is in this, is on our lives-He has brought us to this place of blessing.

And that’s how I used to always think of that verse-the cup overflowing with goodness and blessing.

But what about when the cup overflows with sorrow?  

With pain?

With tragedy, trials and temptations?

jesus in the garden

Jesus knew about that cup.  That’s the cup He begged the Father to take from Him.

The cup that was bitter and hard to swallow.

He prayed three times, He sweat blood and He battled His flesh so that His spirit could conform to the Father’s will.

And in the end, He submitted Himself to the Father’s plan.

He was obedient, even to death, even to death that He did not deserve, did not HAVE to suffer, did not WANT to suffer.

I have buried a son.

And it is the most painful thing I have ever had to bear.

It’s a burden I never anticipated and it’s a burden of which I will not be free until I join him in Heaven.

There are some parents who have suffered the loss of multiple children. Or who have suffered child loss and other difficult life circumstances.

If my cup is full and overflowing, theirs is overflowing still more.

Where to take that full cup?

Where to find the strength to carry it, to drink it to the dregs?

When my heart screams, “No more!” and my body cries, “I can’t do this!”, I look to my Savior for the model of how to carry on.

Only in Christ, Who Himself bore the cup and Who drank its bitter fullness can I hope for strength and redemption.

The One Who knows my pain can carry my pain.

The One Who lives again will breathe life into my heart.  

The One Who redeems what the enemy has stolen will turn my mourning to dancing.  

cup of blessing

This cup will not always overflow with sorrow.  Around the banquet table at the wedding supper of the Lamb, it will once again be full of joy.

You make me know the path of life; in your presence is unbounded joy, in your right hand eternal delight.

Psalm 16:11 CJB

 

 

No Substitute for TIME

Healing can’t be hurried.

Read the rest:  No Rush