More of the Same

If you haven't suffered, live longer.

The above sentence from the link, among a few others, jumped out at me. If we have all suffered, or will suffer, why are we so inept at responding to the suffering of others?

Sometimes, it's because we suffer in silence. Although I bare my heart and soul on this blog, I've become an expert at pulling myself together in public. Except in big groups. And at church. And baby showers. I haven't been invited to one yet since Weston died, but going to one sounds like the eighth or ninth level of hell.

Anyway. I'm good at "being strong." I'm pretty stressed out right now, with too many commitments and not enough time, and stress swallows up grief pretty easily. People, including family, ask how I'm doing (for real), and I sidestep it, because I'm letting the distraction of the moment overshadow my grief.

But that is a major digression from the point of the link. The link is more of the same, really, but it is so incredibly important that I will say it twice: knowing God does not mean you can sidestep grief. Knowing God does not mean you can sidestep grief. 

For whatever reason, it's so tempting to just spout off attributes of God to a suffering person (see the link), but doing so is so unhelpful. Let the suffering person think and feel for themselves and arrive at their own conclusions about God; it will be much more meaningful that way. As a bonus, the suffering person will not have to exercise any self-control for refraining from punching the spouter-offer in the face!

Why do I have a feeling that the problems described in the link will never go away? Sigh...

Just read the link. She is a much more pleasant person than I am.