The Grieving Heart

When I was five years old, the oldest daughter of the family next door committed suicide. Her death was traumatizing to the whole neighborhood, and her family was devastated.

The mother later published a story of how our relationship developed over the following months. In the story, she recounted how I would go by and sit with her, comfort her, and speak tenderly toward her. At one point, I put on a coon skin cap and a stethoscope and told her I was a country doctor who had come to care for her.

I write this not as a self-aggrandizing statement, but more to show that God has created me to care for people as a pastor and a friend. He has enabled me to, for the time being, do that at Scum of the Earth Church, a gift that I am (mostly) grateful for.

But it is part of who I am, a very large and definitive part.

The problem, though, is that in caring well for others, I oftentimes find myself overwhelmed. It is a necessary part of empathy that enables a pastor to enter into the pain of another person. But it can be crushing at the same time. Not in a co-dependent way wherein an unhealthy attachment is made, but more in a 'Jesus please come back and bring your healing power' sort of way.

As I seek to detach myself from the situation, I understand that there is a necessary part that requires an attachment to be able to pastor a person through the waves of life.

The place of resolution has been the constant reminder that I give myself: It is God who brings about healing, not me. I am not the Savior!

And to see the redemption that God has brought (and is bringing) in my own life gives me hope that this will all come to resolution as we submit ourselves to Him and look toward the Cross. It is this hope that brings about hope and rest in the midst of turmoil.

And it is this hope that sustains us. May we all find the peace of Christ in our lives as we walk through suffering with those whom we love.