Author’s note: This post was written just before Christmas in 2017, and was not posted until now. Please have compassion for the brain fog it seems to have been written in. 🙂 Reading it now, I have so much to add, but I pray that this may bless and encourage you as you seek to have compassion on those around you. 

I don’t think I ever gave my friends and family enough credit. In 2016, right before Christmas, I went downhill suddenly. Like a switch from light to dark, I suddenly experienced anxiety, depression, and irrational thoughts. I think that I can confidently say that that was the hardest season of this sickness. I could handle pain. I could handle physical discomfort and disability. Sure, it was hard, but through God, I could figure it out.

The mental stuff on the other hand . . . I couldn’t figure that part out. It wasn’t that easy. It was a scary time. And a lot of the time it felt like no one could possibly understand me. After all, I didn’t understand the things I was going through. How could it be that someone who had never felt them could understand? They had it easier, I thought. They didn’t have to feel what I was feeling. They could take a break, I couldn’t.

Whether I was right or wrong is a discussion for another time. But there is one thing that I never fully grasped.  I never fully understood what they were feeling as they watched me. Just as they couldn’t understand me first-hand, neither did I  understand them. Sure, we both had a good general idea. As the following verse says, God can equip people to comfort others even if they haven’t experienced it themselves:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. –2 Corinthians 1:2-3 (NIV (emphasis mine))

Recently, though, God has given me a glimpse of what they may have been feeling. Of what it feels like to watch someone you love overcome by the pain or the irrational lies or the suffering. Of how hard it is to watch someone you love suffer when there’s nothing you can do but pray. Or to watch them when you do have things that can help them, but are unable to tell them, or perhaps they simply don’t want to listen.

I’ve been the one who doesn’t want to listen. I’ve been the one people are powerless to help. I’ve been the one beating myself up with irrational lies. That was last Christmas.

This Christmas, I’ve been the one watching when someone I love beats themselves up with lies. I’ve watched as people struggle with suffering while I’m powerless to help. I’ve watched from afar as people go through the same things I’ve been through, and though I have the knowledge to help them, I’m unable to help. These things hurt, these things are so frustrating.

So what do we do when we find ourselves in that position? It’s hard to know what to do with our hurt in the face of someone else’s’ suffering that seems so much deeper than our own. Right? I’ve found out the hard way that watching is a battle all on its own.

Because I’ve been in a similar place to these people, it makes my heart hurt even worse than I think it would have a few years ago to watch. Because I’ve been in (or still am in) a similar place to these people, I want so badly to ‘fix them’ with the knowledge about health and faith and suffering that I’ve had to learn the hard way. I don’t want them to make the same mistakes I have. Because these people have been in a similar place that I have, I think that I know w

hat to say.

However, I’ve realized that trying to ‘fix’ people isn’t always the best way to help them. Trying to ‘say the right things’ isn’t always the best option.

Over an over again, as I’ve been shown compassion by others–and have attempted to show it myself–I’ve learned an important lesso

n. Real, meaningful, successful compassion comes only from God. It’s not something that we can do on our own. It’s only by listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit that can we know what to say and do (or not say and do).

Another thing I learned? It’s important to not only listen to the Holy Spirit for guidance but also wise to be willing to simply listen to the person you’re trying to comfort. Be willing to simply be there. To hug them while they cry, or to pray silently over them, staying near them in the room.

Try to listen to the words that they aren’t saying. Do they want hugs? Do they want people to leave them alone? Is physical contact overwhelming at that moment for them?

Also, to those you want to help, but can’t, remember that sometimes we humans need to learn things the hard way. Again, listen to God’s prompting. Surrender that person to Him.

Finally, while those tips are super important to know as you try to comfort the person in front of you . . . there’s one more thing you need to know today. It’s about how to handle your own hurt, as your heart breaks watching them. It’s to trust them to God. I know it’s hard. It takes a lot of faith to let someone go into God’s arms. But His hands are perfectly capable. It’s helpful for me to remember how He brought me through my own trials. I can trust Him to bring those I know through their trials. I may not be able to do anything, but He can and will. He won’t abandon them or you.

God knows what it is to watch people suffer. He knows the pain you are feeling. He has carried all of our burdens. Cast both the person and yourself on Him. He is strong enough for you both. Ask Him for wisdom and strength to love the person in front of you, to care for them, and to help you stick by them no matter what. Ask for His compassion and His peace and His love. After all, He is love.