Not Alone

"I'm scared," he said in a low voice. "That's ridiculous!" responded his big sister. He is dyslexic and was facing his fifth grade writing test; she is in high school facing tests she felt eclipsed any test taken by a fifth grader. "But please,' he replied longingly, 'can't you remember what this feels like?" What he was really asking for was to be understood. He wanted a sympathetic understanding for what he was struggling with.

I saw her sitting in the congregation. Sitting isolated in a room full of people. She had suffered a miscarriage. No one had seen the baby. No one had felt the stirring of life like she had, no one really knew how to respond, so they simply walked past her. She wasn't sure what she wanted, she didn't know how to ask. What she needed was for someone who would be willing acknowledge her pain and grieve with her.

"I can find no clinical reason for your condition," the doctor said. You would think that she would be relived but she wasn't. What she was going through was altering her life and yet without a clinical diagnosis she felt like an impostor. Her suffering was invisible and nameless and yet still it was crippling her emotionally. She felt so alone and longed desperately to be understood even though she herself didn't understand.

For Lent this year I have chosen to meditate on 1 Peter 3:8 "Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind." I don't just want to meditate on this verse I want it to guide my actions. So, today I will be having lunch with the boy who is struggling with his test. Sunday I will look for someone whose eyes are downcast and if nothing else I will simply sit with them. I will humbly listen to the one who is fighting an invisible enemy, I will listen with sympathetic love.

Lord Jesus, during this season of Lent I am reminded of how you entered into our sufferings. I am reminded that You did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped but instead You took our griefs and carried our sorrows. Please show me how to reflect Your tender loving kindness to those with whom I live.