When Comforting Others Seems Impossible

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Paul's opening statement in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians has long struck me as one of the most profound and humbling truths in all of Scripture.  In 2 Cor. 1:3-11, Paul explains that the suffering and affliction that he and Timothy had experienced while in Asia occurred for the purpose of teaching them how to better comfort other believers who go through similar afflictions.  God not only subjected Paul and Timothy to affliction, but He comforted them even more abundantly because of their experience.  The benefit of being brought through affliction to share in the spiritual comfort that comes through Christ is that the Christian is able to better empathize and serve his fellow Christians who are in the midst of their own suffering. 

That's a marvelous portion of Scripture, because it teaches the Christian to view their suffering not as a simple question of "why does God allow this bad thing to happen to me?" but a question of "how does God want me to use my suffering to comfort others who might be going through something similar?"  That's quite a revelation; it turns our focus away from ourselves and encourages us to start thinking about others.

On the other hand, the 2 Corinthians text does at least suggest that if God has not chosen to subject us to a particular form of suffering, then we may not be as qualified to comfort others as we might like to be.  Therefore, the experience of affliction becomes a prerequisite for us to learn how to better comfort others with the comfort that Christ first shows to us when we are in the position of the afflicted one.

That's a hard truth that frustrates me.

I don't have the personal experience to empathize fully with a widow who lost her husband young.  Neither can I fully identify with parents who have had to bury their own children, sometimes before those kids have even been born.  And thankfully, I don't yet know the pain of losing a parent.  But I have friends who live with all these burdens.

Another example has weighed heavily on my heart in recent days. This past week marked an important anniversary for people associated with Union University.  Tuesday February 5 was the five-year anniversary of the tornado that destroyed most of the old student dormitories but did not take the lives of any people on campus.  I graduated in 2005, which means I was already long gone when the storm came, but I had many dear friends who were still there when it happened.  I still remembered how terrified I was that night in my Louisville dorm seeing the reports of the devastation on the news and trying to decide if it was wise to try and call my friends in Jackson, TN to see if they were alright.

After all was accounted for, all of my friends were safe, but they were forever changed after that night.  They had experienced something terrible, a sensation of terror that I cannot even imagine.  I have marveled at the Union story for all five of these years.  There is even a strange sense within me that actually wishes I could have been there on campus that night so that I could have suffered in solidarity with my friends and know the depths of what they had to endure.  I wish I could have been there to help them in 2008, but I wasn't.  And I wish I could be better qualified to know how to best comfort them even to this day.  But that's impossible.  I wasn't there, and I can't understand the affliction (and the comfort) that those students and staff came to understand all too well.

I am humbled by the reality that I am unable to comfort my friends with the comfort that can only come from the people who were there and lived that night.  I experienced my fair share of storm warnings while at Union between 2001-2005, but I never lived through anything even comparable to "The Tornado."  And because of what I've seen at Union, I've since tried hard to prepare myself for a worst-case scenario whenever I endure storm warnings in Louisville.  None of this, however, makes me qualified to compare my experiences with my friends who saw the sights and sounds of February 5th.  I haven't warranted that sense of solidarity. And so I'm frustrated, because I know I am helpless to do what I want to do.  In a very real sense, I am incapable of bringing comfort to others.

But where our own strength might fail, the wisdom and mercy of God abounds all the more abundantly.  Thank God that there are other people who lived through that experience who cared for and continue to care for my friends.  Thank the Lord for the church families of all those folks who served the needs of their own.  Praise be to God that in the Body of Christ, there will always be someone who has undergone suffering so that they might be made more adept to bring comfort to others.

In my helplessness to comfort my friends as I would like, I can only offer my prayers to the Father of mercies and God of all comfort (to borrow the words of the 2 Corinthians passage once more).  And though I might lack the requisite understanding that comes through personal experience, I can pray the words of Philippians 4:7 that God might comfort my friends with "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding."

Grieve the Moment

I've spend a good deal of time on the internet over the past few years, and I've noticed a number of trends about how people use their social media accounts.

One thing I've learned is that whenever something tragic happens on a visible and public scale, people will inevitable try to immediately change the tone of the conversation away from a consideration of the present tragedy into a comment about some other issue that is morally significant to their interests.  It's not a matter of "if" someone will act in such a manner, it's only a matter of "when."

I observed this phenomenon after the Newtown, Connecticut school massacre.  Obviously, gun control  laws were and still are the popular subject of discussion, but I noticed another trend among many would-be paragons that bothered me.  There were a few folks who expressed some sentiment along the following lines "The murder of 26 children and school officials at Newtown was terrible but our country has legally aborted over 50 million babies since 1973!" Granted, that's a true statistic, but why does one think it's wise to frame the discussion in that light?  And as atrocious as abortion is, the argument against its legalization is not advanced by diminishing the severity of a mass-scale elementary school shooting.

I don't fully understand why people feel justified in doing this kind of "morality juke."  But I suspect the best explanation might be that the tragedy of the moment doesn't quite connect with their emotions at a truly personal level.  Although nearly two dozen children died (who most of the nation knew not by memory but only by their names and faces), some people immediately wanted to get angry about something else.  Such comments do nothing to console the pain of the grieving families of the slain.  If it were my children, parents, or siblings who were the victims, then I am certain that my soul wouldn't care about being burdened by an additional moral outrage.

As a point of illustration, I recall this same tendency in comments that were made in the context of local news reports about the car accident that claimed the life of my friend Stacy Ellison.

On the news broadcast that aired on television that night, the news reporter narrated the events of the crash and then abruptly changed the subject.  She warned that more automobile fatalities might be in store for Louisville drivers as wintry weather conditions descended upon the city.  Then, as a clip of my friend's crumpled Ford Taurus was displayed on the screen, she issued a morbid warning about the dangers of distracted driving.  I don't know if either Stacy or the truck driver who crossed lanes and collided with him were driving distracted at the time (though based on what I've read, the other driver simply had a medical attack and lost control in an instant), but that question certainly didn't matter to me. I know for certain that wintry weather conditions weren't a factor, but the nightly news nevertheless felt the need to create a narrative where it didn't need to exist.  If I were to ever have the opportunity to have a face-to-face conversation with that reporter, I would feel compelled to ask her why she felt the need to dismiss the immediate tragedy like she did. 

But I suppose I already know what the answer might be.  The fact is that while a fatal automobile accident in a Metro area is both public and newsworthy, it simply doesn't have much emotional power unless one actually knew the victims involved.  It was only newsworthy as a local story, not as a national tragedy.  And the only people who really had to suffer were the victims and the people who knew them and their families.  Those who weren't personally affected by the event could simply divert their minds to other concerns and move on with their life routines.

My hope is we will cease our habits of dismissing the impact of immediate tragedies in order to draw attention to other subjects, however important they might be.  Let us do more to follow the example of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, who grieved with their suffering friend for seven days and seven nights without even daring to offer a word, as Scripture recounts in Job 2:11-13.  And let us avoid the imitation of their eventual attempts to shift the narrative from one of grief into irate moral diatribe.  Though there is much evil and suffering in the world that might pain us and remain ever with us, we are often best served to focus on the present crisis of a fresh wound... and grieve in the moment.

Memorable Moments

I haven't have many deep or particularly organized thoughts lately, but I have had a lot of serendipitous moments of epiphany that had the effect of brightening my day in a special way.  So I figured I'd compile them for future reference.

Thanks a Lot for Caring!
A couple of Mondays ago, the checkout girl at Big Lots asked me (totally out of the blue) "you look so sad, what happened today?" It was awkward, but the more I thought about it, I realized that we could use more people like that in the world.

And then I felt totally sheepish in admitting that I was just trying to figure out whether or not I'd be able to make it home in time for the Notre Dame-Alabama BCS National Championship Game. She seemed a bit disappointed after that.

Though what I didn't tell her was that I kinda had to go to the bathroom at the time. That might have been a factor in my somewhat subdued facial expression while waiting in line.

Pay It Forward
I saw this a certain offer going around on some of my friends' Facebook accounts, and it seemed intriguing.  I generally avoid any type of copy-paste style postings because the internet is just full of spam and crazy stuff, but this one was a little different.  This gist of the message was that the first five people to comment on the particular status would receive from the original poster something homemade (not sure if I'll limit myself to that rule or not) as a gift at any random point during the year. But the twist is that each of those five people must return the favor by posting the message on their Facebook pages and make the same offer to five people. 

It's a cool idea, because it makes yourself available to serve some folks in a special way that maybe you wouldn't necessarily think about.  I've got close to 700 Facebook "friends" so any five of them could have had the opportunity to take advantage of it.  Some of the folks who took advantage of my offer are folks with whom I haven't had much contact in the last few years.  It should be a fun and challenging project to try and figure out what might be a cool gift to send them.

The whole thing reminds me of that movie Pay It Forward where the middle-school kid aspires to change the world by doing good for random people he meets and them making them promise to pass along the favor.  It's a pretty cool concept, but of course the poor kid dies at the end trying to break up a school yard fight.  That seemed like a cheap ploy by the movie-people to me.  Oh well, I guess the ghost of Haley Joel Osment's character lives on in spirit...

Granny Always Said I was "Makin' a Preacher"
About a month ago, I agreed to teach the adult Sunday School class for one Sunday in January, which ended up being tomorrow's date, January 20.  A little while later, I volunteered to preach a Sunday night sermon on the same day.  Last week, my pastor asked me if I could substitute for him on the Wednesday night Bible studies for three consecutive weeks, starting with this past Wednesday.  So, yeah, it's been a bit of of a busy week trying to get everything organized.  There would have been a time when I probably would have considered this to be too much commitment and I might have turned some of it down for fear of having my focus divided and not being able to do as good a job as I might like.

But sometime after I began the PhD program at the seminary, I've started to think of myself as a preacher, even if I am still of a work-in-progress and still "in the waiting," so to speak.  Getting opportunities to preach and teach doesn't so much intimidate me as it does excite me (though I still agonize over the preparation and lead-up process).  When I'm up there speaking about the Word, I feel truly alive. To the best of my knowledge, that sense of exhilaration doesn't stem from any kind of vanity or self-serving pride, but from a confidence that it's just where I'm supposed to be.

That doesn't mean I'm ready to start putting out my resumes for salaried church positions. I haven't done that because I'm content to work the job I have so long as I'm still in school, and I don't want to tie up my weekends in case I need to make some quick trips back to Tennessee to visit family.  That day is coming, but I'm not there yet.

I'm Thankful for This Year... of Suffering

I am thankful for being able to know suffering this year on an unprecedented scale from what I had known previously.

I know that sounds bizarre, and I don't want to give the impression that I enjoy suffering in any sense.  I hate death.  I despise everything about it, everything it has done to people I love, and what it will eventually do to me one day. I hate the fact that we live in a fallen world where suffering and death are inevitable.  Whether it comes suddenly (like the loss of my church friends) or slowly (in the case of my Granny), death is a terrible, terrible thing.  It really is "the last enemy" as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:26.

But suffering can also be instructive and purposeful in a Christian's spiritual maturity.

This morning, my pastor Brian Croft commemorated the anniversary of our friends' passing with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 1:1-11, where Paul famously proclaimed that God "comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort that we ourselves are comforted by God" (verse 4).  I seem to remember trying to do a Greek exegetical paper on that text, but most of those projects left me less sure of the text's meaning than I was before I even started the study (that's probably one of the reasons why I decided not to push my luck with biblical language studies in the post-graduate level).

Exegetical nuances aside, I think the meaning of this text is more easily accessible for Christian believers who have endured great suffering and loss but have consequently been strengthened in their faith because of that suffering.  They have been able to recognize Christ as truly sufficient for their weaknesses.  Those who have suffered greatly and lost much should be more willing and able to comfort other brothers and sisters who are going through their own struggles.

Truth be told, I've lived a very comfortable life.  I'm still living a very comfortable life.  Growing up, I didn't experience much loss.  Those losses have certainly started piling up in the last five years, however; such is the nature of life.  When you don't known the pain of loss, it's hard to really understand what most of the Bible is talking about.  So, instead of focusing your exegetical energies on comforting people with the Word of God, you can tend to distract yourself with discussions and debates over subjects that (while important) don't really capture the thrust of what the Biblical authors (and the Holy Spirit) were most interested in communicating to God's people.  I could indulge that point further, but now is not the time.

It's important that so many of Paul's letters begin and end with comforting words to the Christian churches.  These churches, regardless of their relative virtues and vices, were living in tough times.  Paul himself had seen suffering beyond what even most of them had experienced.  But even Paul knew that his own tribulations couldn't compare to the greatest sacrifice which our Lord Jesus Christ made for us in his Passion week.  Now that was the definition of a terrible seven days.  Our Savior suffered and died for us, and by His resurrection He secured our eternal reward.  That reward doesn't mean that we've been given a free pass in this life to avoid pain and live a perfectly comfortable life. Quite the contrary, in fact. Our suffering will come, whether by external forces bearing down upon us in hostility or through the natural course of life in a fallen world.

But we've got a promise that we serve a God who is also our Great High Priest.  He symphathizes with us completely in our infirmities and was tempted in every way, yet He was without sin (Hebrews 4:14).  Because of His suffering, we can approach the throne of God with confidence that He will bestow us grace to endure our own suffering and use our experiences to comfort others in their suffering.

Therefore, I'm thankful for this year in which God has taught me suffering, even if my experience is still meager compared to what most people in life deal with on a daily basis.  And I ought to be about the business of bringing comfort and grace to others, because I'm sure I'll be on the receiving end again in the future.

I'm Thankful for This Year, Part II

I am thankful for friends and family and for the time I've been able to spend building relationships with them over the past year.  When I learned of the death of the Boyetts, the first thing I thought about was how terrible it would be to suddenly lose my parents.  When I learned of the death of Stacy, the first thing I thought about was how terrible it would be to lose any of my dearest friends I have made throughout life.

After my friend Adam Embry called to inform me of Stacy's death, I jumped in my truck and personally went  to deliver the news to my dear friends, the Gould family.  After I returned home, I attempted to call up a number of old friends whom I hadn't spoken to in a long time.  As best as I could manage, I tried to tell my friends how much I deeply appreciated each one of them being a part of my life.  And I've been able to use this last year to take some opportunities in trying to make the most of those existing friendships and to work hard so that those bonds don't disappear due to neglect on my part.  I haven't been able to invest as much time as I'd like, and most of the time my contact with long-distance friends has to be limited to email, phone calls, or social messaging technologies.

Stacy's sudden death became a source of some guilt for me because for as much time as I spent with the Ellison family, I couldn't recall many instances where I had verbalized my appreciation of their friendship.  It's a cliche, but "sometimes the important things go unsaid."  For whatever reason, being fully honest about my feelings has been an emotionally difficult thing for me to do.  It's not so much that I'm hung up on some misplaced notion of masculinity, but it just doesn't feel like a very natural thing to my own personality.  Most of us don't live our lives constantly and repeatedly gushing about how much we appreciate our most beloved family and friends, but we shouldn't neglect that sort of thing altogether either.  When God takes folks away from us without warning, we'll regret the fact that we never took the opportunity to let those people know exactly what we thought about them.

I suppose that without that terrible week last year, it would have taken me longer to realize all that.  So I'm thankful that out of those tragedies came something good for me on a personal level.

One more post to come in this series later tonight.