Don't Sing Me A Song When I'm Crying

We go to school from the time we are still having accidents in our pants, some of us anyway. Not me, just the kid that sat next to me. Anyway, we are in school for about 18 years and maybe longer if we choose, and how many classes did you have on how to relate to a suffering person? How many classes taught you how to handle losing someone you love? Did you even learn it at Sunday School or youth group? I can honestly say no to all of those. Of course some things are only learned in the class of Life Experience, but wouldn't it be nice to have a guide for some of these things?

Compassion for another human being is the way we relate to one another. When they hurt, we hurt too. When they need, we want to give. So why is it we so often get this wrong? Because we blunder through our own pain. We don't want to make a fool of ourselves. We get too close sometimes and we're afraid of making a mistake, saying the wrong thing. And a lot of us are afraid to feel another person's pain. Mainly because we're afraid of our own.

So, we get hyped up, a little too cheerful, and we start "singing songs" to a grieving person. This might be a really chipper greeting, an overly positive Christian saying or a big ole smile when you're in a puddle of tears. In other words, they're missing the mark with their reaction because they don't want you to feel the way you feel. They want you to get out of your pit. But that's not how it works. And it makes things so much worse.

I'm reading the book, "Don't Sing Songs to a Heavy Heart" -How to Relate to Those Who are Suffering by Kenneth C. Haugk, Ph.D, in an effort to not only become more sensitive to hurting people, but to become a more effective communicator of my own feelings. People can only help you if you are being honest about where you are in your heart. You can only help people if you are meeting them where they are, and not trying to put them where YOU think they should be.

I'll be sharing more about this book as I get into it more. But if this could be a class in a church, I think about the people this could help!! The pain it could ease on both sides. We are to be easing each others' burdens. Not adding to them.