When my husband, kids or friend feel bad I want to be there for them. What kind of a friend would I be if I wasn’t there for them? I have assumed to be ‘there’ means I try to fix the problem and make them feel better. If I don’t at least try it’s somehow a reflection on my ability to be kind and compassionate.
Here’s the problem with this…what if my friend needs to feel bad? I actually feel awkward writing that sentence. I feel like a heel…like what kind of a friend would I be to think my friend ‘needs’ to feel bad? Who am I to judge what my friend needs?
There are two areas of life where it’s good to feel bad; grief and regret.
Grief
When we have experienced a loss, we need to feel the loss. It’s part of a mature life. It takes time to understand how the loss has affected our life. We need to consider how to continue without the thing lost. We need to miss it.
When we don’t spend the necessary time to miss what has been taken from us, we run to addictions in order to not feel the loss. In America, our favorite addiction is busyness in order to escape our emotions.
But a good friend will sit with someone who is recognizing a loss in their life. They won’t rush in with platitudes and quick fixes such as, “at least you have other children”, or “God must have other plans for your life”, or “it’s just a house, you’ll get over it.” No, a good friend will say, “Oh I miss that thing too.” I’ve written more on grief here.
Regret
We’ve all felt regret at some point. It is an awful feeling and we don’t like to sit in it. In order to out run regret we blame, justify, and ignore the effects of our actions. So, when a friend has regret we sometimes help them to do the same because we know how awful that feeling is. We can even feel good about ourselves because we helped them outrun regret.
This last week I had three people tell me of some very destructive behaviors of their spouses and each of them followed it up with, “but I told him I loved him and everything would be ok. I forgave him and tried my best to make him feel good about himself.” Instead of allowing them to sorrow, they fixed the problem. They rushed in with a platitude of forgiveness instead of communication about resolving the issues at hand. The rescuer wanted to be seen as kind and merciful. They also didn’t want to sit in the grief and regret any longer.
I’m not suggesting making a person feel bad. I am suggesting letting a person feel bad. Let them bear the weight of the damage of indifference. Let them experience the brokenness that breaking their word or lies create. Let them understand the destruction of anger. Let them suffer the panic of letting go of control. Let them feel and let them make amends. This is the only way back to a healthy relationship.
The rescuer has many fears in this. We fear the emotion will last forever. We fear they will feel so bad that they will run. We fear they won’t put the effort into changing. And so, pretending the pieces are back together again is better than requiring the pieces be put back together. Being seen as a person who holds it together is better than letting it fall apart.
But here’s the thing… It’s only in the emotion of regret that we come to be ready to change.
When we stop regret, we stop change and we leave our friend…we leave ourselves…in cycles of destruction. “If we confess our sins, HE is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” 1 John 1:9.
Feeling Grief and Regret
I think Christians are particularly bad at letting anyone feel grief and regret because we know the end of the story. We believe that victory is ours. We believe that our sins are forgiven. We believe God makes all things good. But when we rush through to the end, we circumvent the very elements that get us to healing. It’s as though we should get on a long train of restoration, but we take a teleportation shortcut and we end up in space.
Grief and regret are probably the worst feelings in this life. Our human nature is to do anything to avoid them. But these are the very emotions that change the world. A good friend will not try to stop these emotions, but will sit in the emotions with them. God meets us in the valley of the shadow of death and He restores our soul.
Shari's Blog 
Thank you that is so well put! I need to share this because it goes so well with what you wrote. I spent a year in a class on raising children. The teacher used an example that has always stuck with me. In the middle of her lecture she passed around candy. We all put them in our mouths together. I was excited because I love sweets. To my surprise they were “crybabies” a horrible sour gum ball. As we were all making faces and trying to figure out where to spit them out, the teacher said, “keep chewing and listen to this bible verse from Hebrew 12:11, ‘All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but”sourful”, yet to those who have been trained by it afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. ‘ If you keep chewing it will turn fruity and sweet. ” she then went on to tell us how important it is to let our children sit in the sorrow of their sin otherwise they would never be trained by it. I can see where a friend, like a mother, wants to rescue but God wants His child to keep chewing on it til it turns sweet. As a good friend I should encourage them to keep chewing too, if they spit it out they will never experience the sweet.
Yet this is soooo hard for me to do. Thank you for the reminder.
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That’s a great illustration. Thanks!
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