silence is enough - 1st week wednesday 2015

It is difficult to give counsel to people who are in pain.  It is difficult to find words in order to console people who are suffering.  Sometimes in our desire to show sympathy to people in their agony and grief, and in our need to show our concern and understanding to them we talk and talk and talk and talk thinking that words would alleviate pain.  Actually they do not.  In my own experience they simply annoy.

Many times silence is enough and presence is most helpful.  In the letter to the Hebrews Jesus is able to help those in pain because he himself suffered, he himself was tempted.  It is not what Jesus does to those in pain that alleviates pain.  It is rather what he has been into, what he has gone through that alleviates my pain.  It is the thought that Jesus suffers with me, that Jesus cries in pain with me, that sometimes Jesus is angry too as I am angry in my disability and in my incapacity because of my pain.  Jesus as a human being shares in my desire to end suffering, to end pain.  But like all humans like me Jesus is helpless too in many of his own sufferings.

If the letter to the Hebrews is any consolation to those who are in pain it is this: when you are in pain you are not alone.  Jesus is with you.  But he is not just with you.  He suffers with you, He feels your pain.  He cries with you.