How Not to Help a Sufferer

I thought this article was really great: How Not to Help a Sufferer. It discusses ways that you are not helping when someone you know is at a moment of grief grief in their life. I have quite a few friends going through really, really difficult things right now. I really hope I can do what this article suggests: 

Included in this list are the following:

1. Appeal too quickly to God’s sovereignty.

2. Launch into a story of how God used your suffering.

3. Minimize the wrongdoing that caused the suffering.

4. Emphasize character formation while neglecting comfort and compassion.

I also loved a quote that the author shared near the end of the piece. I include it here:

There’s a scene in The Magician’s Nephew where a little boy named Digory meets Aslan. His mother is sick, and he wants to ask for Aslan’s help, but he’s afraid. Lewis writes:

Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great front feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself. “My son, my son,” said Aslan. “I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another.”