When Sympathy Saps: How Not to Strengthen a Suffering Friend
“I just don’t even know what to say. My heart hurts for you!”
That from a friend, after she read my last update. But then she texted again,
“Question: When I say how I hurt for you, do you feel it weakens you in your battle? I only ask because I don’t want to do that.”
I’ll share my answer, although you can probably guess.
But you might be surprised to hear how I got there.
Before I trace that, you need to know that sympathy doesn’t always come naturally to me. Sometimes I have to coax sympathy. Yes, the quickest way to a heart is through a wound. Yet often my first response to the wounded one is analysis, not love.
All that to say, I had a lot to learn about sympathy.
How to Strengthen
But as this season suffering has not been fallow. I’ve received some unexpected lessons since this all started on the pickleball court that first week of spring. I’m learning what strengthens my hand in God, and what doesn’t.
Some of these encouragements are intuitive. I love hearing positive outcomes from people as deep in the mire as me. When my friend Bob called me over after church, to tell me about the Cleveland Browns quarterback who had made a comeback from, not one, but two Achilles’ ruptures—that was encouraging. When friends bring food, pray, and send funny memes, those strengthen me too.
Sometimes what helps is less obvious. As I crutched through the church door, and Mike the greeter glanced down, shook his head and said, “I won’t even ask how you’re doing”—that also was a mercy.
But sometimes, on some days, I do like to tell my “how-I’m-doing” story.
Sometimes on some days, I don’t mind talking about the medical side of my life. I don’t mind sharing that my wound care doctor told me today that getting my wound to close over my Achilles tendon is like getting grass to grow on a rock. Hence, a third surgery awaits.
We know that it varies from person to person and from day to day as to how to best encourage our suffering friends.
That we know. But here’s the surprising part.
When a Smile and a Sigh Make You Cry
Last weekend, it didn’t take much. On the heels of discouraging news about my re-ruptured, re-repaired and newly infected Achilles’ tendon a hair’s breadth under a lingering gaping wound, the slightest hint of compassion would make me cry.
I wept when my sweet niece smiled and merely asked how I was, and when a kind sigh escaped her mom. I couldn’t control those tears. For the record, my sister-in-law and niece did everything right. They asked and they listened, and my sweet 10-month-old great nephew cooed right through—all as it should be.
But I realized that more I talked about my physical troubles, the more sorry I felt for myself and, if I’m honest, the less I trusted the goodness of my God.
I’m learning to divert the conversation from my wounds, and to speak about other things.
We might chalk this up to my non-coddling personality. But I’m not an N-of-1. This draining side effect of sympathy is not unique to me.
How to Sap
I know this because “The Sacrament of the Saint” was in my devotional reading last week. The anchor verse was 1 Peter 4:19 (ESV),
“So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.”
Oswald Chambers explains,
“No healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he chooses God’s will, as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. No saint dare interfere with the discipline of suffering in another saint.
The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. The people who do us good are never those who sympathize with us, they always hinder, because sympathy enervates [lessens vitality and strength]…
If we accept the sympathy of a saint, the reflex feeling is — “Well, God is dealing hardly with me.” That is why Jesus said self-pity was of the devil. Be merciful to God’s reputation.”
Maybe you think Chambers and I overstate. But what if I show you that our Lord Jesus spurned a friend’s sympathy?
When Sympathy Hinders
Remember when Jesus began to tell his disciples that he would soon suffer and die? Remember what our Lord’s good, sympathetic friend Peter said?
“God forbid, Lord! May it never be!”
It was as if Peter was saying, “God would never do such a hard a thing to you.” The Bible commentator Matthew Henry says Peter’s words were an “excess of kindness.” Peter loved Jesus, so he did not want him to suffer these things.
But Henry goes further,
“Those that hinder us from doing or suffering for God, when we are called to it…in that they are Satans—adversaries to us.”
Which is exactly why Jesus replied, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Mtt 16:23).
When you tell your friend how hard she has it, you risk weakening her in her fight for faith.
As believers in the only wise God who “does all things well,” we must be careful how we express our sympathy. We must not insinuate that our good God has failed her and has not been good.
In your sympathy you may unwittingly:
- Tempt your friend to self-pity—which is “of the devil.”
- Dishonor our good God—to damage his reputation.
A saint wouldn’t want to tempt another saint in either of those ways.
Weep With Those Who Weep?
But what about Romans 12:15, “Weep with those who weep”?
Yes, do. Weep—if your friend is weeping. Follow her lead.
A friend of a friend recently lost her 23-year-old son in a motorcycle accident. When my friend met her for coffee a couple months later, she was shocked that her friend did not want to talk about it.
“I’m all cried out,” she explained. They talked about books and baking instead. Like a baby distracted from his sadness by a bit of food or a new toy, sometimes the wisest thing we can do is distract ourselves from our sorrow with a taste of joy.
“Sorrows, because they are lingering guests, I will entertain but moderately, knowing that the more they are made of, the longer they will continue.”
The Puritan Joseph Hall wrote that, 500 years ago. Long before research revealed that thinking about our pain makes it feels more painful, or that dwelling on sadness makes it seem more sad.
“Sorrows, because they are lingering guests, I will entertain but moderately, knowing that the more they are made of, the longer they will continue.”
JOSEPH HALL
On this old earth we grieve, we mourn, we weep–”but moderately.” We are sorrowful and always rejoicing (1 Corinthians 6:10).
One day, gladness and joy will overtake us, and sorrow and sighing will flee away (Isaiah 51:11). But until then, the best thing a friend can do for me is to remind me of God’s goodness—that “whatever befall me,” Jesus does all things well.
A Surprising Lesson
I am learning this surprising lesson as my one-legged season lengthens: sympathy saps me. It drains me of joy and peace. Telling me how hard I have it weakens me for faith’s good fight.
By now, you can guess how I answered my friend’s thoughtful question. This is how:
“I appreciate a bit of sympathy, but then help me to be of good cheer. Christ has overcome.”
If you find yourself beside a suffering friend today, beware. The way you show sympathy may sap your friend’s strength in her fight for joy, for faith.
But if today, you are the suffering friend, take heed.
Sympathy may not be what you need.
“Under any circumstances you may be of great use by being contented and cheerful in your trouble. Those around you will see that God sustains you, and will bless him and glorify him, and perhaps learn to trust him too.”
—P. B. Power, A Book of Comfort for Those in Sickness
