When a loving presence is needed

Oftentimes, our words get in the way.

I have a few close friends and mentors who are hospital chaplains. They have often told me that serving in that role has taught them more about themselves than about others. They’ve told me how they have frozen and responded without thinking when frenzied parents run to them asking if their child is going to live. Almost all of them have told me that they gained more from these traumatic experiences than they have learned in all of their years of seminary training.

Through their experienced wisdom, my friends in the chaplaincy field have also taught me that in many cases hurting people don’t need “the right words”; sometimes they just need a “loving presence.”

The Hebrew Bible’s story of Job is frequently offered as an example of both what and what not to do in a situation where someone has experienced great suffering. According to the story, Job was a “blameless and upright” God-fearing man who suffered greatly after experiencing the sudden deaths of his ten children and his servants in addition to having his entire body become afflicted with painful skin sores. The Book of Job 1:13 says that after his three friends had heard about Job’s troubles they took the initiative to find and comfort him by sitting “with him” for seven days and seven nights. During this time, “no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.”

Whether this story is historically true or not is beyond the point. The point is that this story illustrates a truth about the human condition that is worth wrestling with. At this point in the story, Job’s friends knew that what Job needed was not words, but presence. But, unfortunately, this did not last.

In her recent podcast on this story, Rev. Anne Robertson, a United Methodist pastor and author from Massachusetts, quotes a colleague saying, “Job’s friends were fine until they opened their mouths.” She notes, “They grew impatient in their waiting and after their seven days of silence, they began to offer their explanations and advice to Job…explanations and advice that God condemns at the end of the book.” She offers the following advice to those who would serve as counselors for others:

When friends or loved ones are experiencing great suffering, even if it does not seem so great to us, they do not need our words. They don’t need us to explain God’s actions, which we can’t do anyway, and they certainly don’t need us to tell them to get over it and look for the silver lining. When we enter the world of another’s suffering, we should come with a roll of duct tape to be applied liberally to our lips. It is a time simply to be present.

She goes on to offer some helpful suggestions as to practical things friends can do for those who are grieving, such as making dinner, replacing the tissues, running errands or simply reading a book to them. But she also offers a stern warning for those of us who dare offer words in the presence of those who are going through overwhelming grief and pain.

We should never, under any circumstances, say anything remotely like “God has a reason for this,” unless, of course, you are trying to make an atheist out of them. All God says in those moments is, “I love you,” and those are the words we may speak in the darkness.

I have heard the horror stories of well-intentioned ministers who have shown themselves to be insensitive to the needs of the people they had hoped to comfort. I’ve heard about a funeral service where the officiating minister tells the mother of a miscarried child (who was so small
they had to be buried in a shoe box) to take comfort in the fact that at least she won’t have to worry about stressing to pay for the child’s college tuition. Though it is hard to believe, someone actually said that.

I’ve heard about the ministers who barge into the room of a child stricken with cancer and began giving loud prayers and pouring out anointing oil- acts that only compound the fear and anxiety the child and their family are experiencing.

I’ve heard about the preachers who are more concerned with converting than comforting, as if to bandage the wounded with the pages of their sacred scriptures.

But I have also experienced inspiring people who can enter a room with a silent sensitivity and survey the scene of the suffering. Those relatives and friends who can visit and sit with you for hours, when they could have been tending to their own affairs. Those who seem to know just what you need when you need it.

I've heard stories about those individuals can sense when a family or patient wants to talk and when they should just leave their contact information and come back some other time. One of my chaplain friends described a period of three days when he would just step into a hospital room to survey the family’s situation and then step out upon realizing that it was not yet time for his intervention. After a few days, the family invited him into their grieving process and it worked out well for all involved as he let them lead.

Words often get in the way. But it seems that a loving presence can gain admittance into parts of the human heart where words have no access.