"When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other . . . ."Ecclesiastes 7:14 (NIV)
What helps you most when you feel sad?” I asked a friend as we sat outside a coffee shop, enjoying the first nice day of spring and catching up with each other. Like me, she’d faced some challenges in the last year.
She fiddled with her napkin for a moment and then answered, “A friend who listens and doesn’t try to rush me into ‘happy.’”
I smiled at her choice of words.
“Sometimes I just need to talk about my feelings,” she continued, “so I want someone to listen without trying to resolve my problem or fix me—someone who will simply sit with me in my sadness for a little while.”
We fell silent for a moment and then she asked me the same question.
“What helps me most is remembering that I don’t have to be afraid of feeling sad,” I said. “I think of sadness as a place I go through on my way to somewhere else. It’s like a dark hallway I’m passing through. And I know that God has something for me to discover in that place, so I try to explore the possibilities, like greater trust or quiet rest or the surprising way I can feel both glad and sad at the same time.”
Or that being in that place makes you a better friend to someone else who’s passing through it,” she added.
Lord, maybe our sadness is a gift from You, because as we pass through the darkness, we seek to see and know You better— and learn to walk alongside others going the same way.
By Carol Kuykendall
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