Suffering comes to everyone.
Sometimes it comes in the form of routine setbacks and disappointments. At other times, suffering is deeper than that, more tragic, even devastating. Enduring suffering asks something of us that few of us are prepared to give. The pain of it all puts us on our heels, tests our character, and strains our relationships.
But what do we do when suffering is someone else’s to endure? What is our responsibility to the sufferer? How can God use us who are looking in from the outside as ministers of mercy?
In the Bible, we read about a man named Job who experienced unimaginable loss. Within only a few days he lost his livestock (livelihood), his servants, his children, and then his health. His wounded and despairing wife told him to give up on God, but he refused. And then three friends showed up.
Job’s friends did not get everything right. In fact, Job’s suffering revealed they had much to learn about the ways of God. But their initial efforts remind us of a few important ways we can respond to our friends who suffer.
Now when Job’s three friends — Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite — heard about all this adversity that had happened to him, each of them came from his home. They met together to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. 12 When they looked from a distance, they could barely recognize him. They wept aloud, and each man tore his robe and threw dust into the air and on his head. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him seven days and nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw that his suffering was very intense. Job 2:11-13
Even as you look in from the outside, consider these four practices God can use to provide great comfort to friends who are suffering:
Show up.
Notice that Job’s friends left their home and went to Job. Technology allows us to communicate quickly and even personally, but there is no substitute for your physical presence.
When a loved one dies, it’s common for the family members to hold “visitation,” which gives friends and family the opportunity to show up.
Some kinds of grief are just too much to bear alone.
So whenever possible, do whatever you can to be present. Even if it’s to sit quietly in a waiting room, or to come and go at a funeral home, to share a meal or do something fun together, just show up.
Make room for grieving.
The church leader, Paul wrote to Christians in Rome that we should “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). Job’s friends went to comfort Job, but when they saw him and the terrible situation he was in, they wept with him.
As uncomfortable as it makes us, lament is an important part of life. Some things make us sad enough to cry.
So to comfort someone isn’t to insist they stop feeling sad or to stop crying. It isn’t to fix their pain. Rather to comfort someone is to feel deeply with them, and then to sit and cry with them.
Serve obvious needs and ask about the others.
Suffering makes us vulnerable, so sufferers need help. They may need groceries picked up. They may need meals prepared. They may need transportation, or help with their kids, or for someone to make a few calls.
Like a cut finger or a broken leg, our most immediate pain blinds us to every other need in our lives. So sufferers don’t always know what they need, which means they can’t tell us exactly what they need in the moment. But if we know them, we know some of their needs and will show kindness, patience, and sacrifice to meet those needs.
Even then, it’s important not to assume too much. Not all needs are as obvious as physical ones. Job’s friends simply made too many assumptions that did not serve Job well.
Pain often causes people to close themselves off, to self-protect. We may even say they are “shutting down on us.”
So there are likely needs that we will not know or understand unless we ask. So when the time is right, ask good questions. And when you ask, be prepared to respond with empathy, grace, and mercy.
Pray for God to give comfort
Flowers, notes, and acts of kindness from faithful friends minister to the afflicted in immeasurable ways. But the comfort of the soul that will sustain through the dark nights and long days ahead only come from the presence of the Lord.
For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 2 Corinthians 1:5
No suffering is wasted suffering. And no suffering hinders the abundant mercies of Christ.
God does amazing work through the most difficult seasons of life, so protecting or rescuing others from pain is not the goal. Explaining away suffering is not helpful either. Instead, praying and trusting God with our friends so that they will experience the wonder and sufficiency of Jesus in their suffering is the greater goal.