How To Help A Person In Pain, Or, Spray Paint and Sparkly Lights

“Let this world know Me by your love”

Zion & Babylon, Josh Garrels

I really don’t mean for this to be a cheesy, cliché Christian blog post. I just want to share something practical that I’ve learned (from recent experience).

Typically, when someone’s loved one passes away, or there’s a tragedy, we say (often with good intention), “Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.” We mean it. But here’s the thing: that well-meant phrase does little for people in mourning or excruciating pain. It’s nice to hear, but it doesn’t get them through the night (or day, for that matter).

For about a month I’ve been having deeply disturbing nightmares and sleep paralysis every night. I guess it’s just a side-effect of bipolar/psychosis? Anyways, it’s not been very fun. And this last week I’ve been in a depressive episode (no energy/will to do anything especially if it involves leaving my room). I’ve also been projectile vomiting fairly regularly, we think as a result of my whipple surgery in 2013. As those of us who have suffered anything(which is all of us), you know that when life kicks you in the shins, it doesn’t wait around or give you a sec to shake it off. Nope, the demands of life march forward seemingly interminably. My friends ask me with the sweetest hearts what they can do for me when my mental or physical health wavers. I never know what to say, or I don’t actually want to burden them. So I say, “Thank you so much; could you just pray for me?” Thoughts and prayers are nice, and I do believe prayers even work! But sometimes what the suffering heart needs is much more practical.

Due to some medication had to take a while ago, I recently gained a significant amount of wait. Having already loathed shopping, I dreaded seeing how many sizes I was going to have to go up in jeans for the winter. But my dear friend Hope said she’d come with me which made it less loathsome and even fun! She ran back and forth getting me the different sizes I needed and then suggested that we go to the doctor for the checkup I’d been meaning to get but never had the energy for. That girl spent her whole night off with me under the harsh fluorescent lights of Patient First! And when the doctor suggested I start on a probiotic, Hope decided we should just go right then to get it because, she said, “you won’t ever do it otherwise” lol true. I ended up buying beer instead but it’s the thought that counts ;).

I realized one of the things people who are in pain need is just help kick-starting their lives again. They need a little nudge and guidance as they trek the road to being a functional human again. No, I don’t mean co-dependency, just some exhortation to start and keep going. A little help goes a long way.

Another thing people in pain need is for you to stop asking what you can do for them and for you to just do something, anything for them. For example, I asked my friend Meagan to come over to my room and pray with me for the nighttime madness to end. She said, “Yes, for sure. I also have another idea… I’ll tell you later. But also you have to go along with it J” I had no idea what her other idea was, but she showed up that night with some spray paint and sparkly lights. She made me a chalk-board with the spray paint to write a sweet message on for me. Then she told me to go downstairs. Twenty minutes later, I get a text saying to come back up and to not be alarmed lol. She was in the process of cleaning my whole room! And, let me tell you, it takes the heart of a Warrior-Poet¹ to brave my room when I’ve been left to my own devices (in other words, it normally looks as if a tornado of clothes and books has recently swept through it). And the best part was, she had hung up sparkly lights! As we finished sorting through all the clothes, she played worship music on her phone and I could feel months of pain being lifted from my heart. Simply by being served without needing to (or being able to) give anything in return. The whole time we cleaned (well, tbh, I mostly just watched), I kept hearing one of my favorite Josh Garrels lyrics. He, speaking from the perspective of God, sings, “Let this world know Me by your love.” Simple, profound. The scripture it alludes to is John 13:35 in which Christ states, “’By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (NASB). I think we’re not wrong if we take if further, as Garrels did with his lyrics, and posit that our loving one another will prove the very existence of God himself.

1) help with the practical parts of day-to-day life. 2) help without being asked or asking what to do. There are loads of ways to do this, logistically; love looks different for everyone. But be brave and love. You could be the only proof of the existence of a good God in someone’s dark night of the soul. Be brave and love, y’all.

1. "In the year of our Lord 1314, patriots of Scotland, starving and outnumbered, charged the fields of Bannockburn. They fought like warrior poets. They fought like Scotsmen and they won their freedom. Forever!" William Wallace, Braveheart