Don't be a fixer....

Recently I was going through a hard time and I was angry. I had moved from hurt and sadness and I was just ticked. A friend said to me, "I hear you." I look back at that conversation and realize there could have actually been a correction of my anger or questions such as:

•Is your anger valid?
•Is your anger holding back healing?
•Is your anger keeping you from seeing your part?
•Is your anger clouding your ability to see the circumstance as it really is?

All of these are great questions however, at the time and in the moment she chose to love me while I was hurting. She chose to acknowledge my anger. She chose to HEAR my pain and frustration.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. Sometimes people don't want you to "fix it". They want to be heard. It was powerful then and it's powerful now as I sit here thinking about it.

And I'll say this....this friend and I have had many conversations since and she has spoken truth into that particular circumstance and I'm grateful for her speaking truth in love....WHEN I was ABLE to HEAR it.

How loving a gesture to simply acknowledge that you hear someone in their pain, grief, anger, frustration, confusion...

This snippet from a book on grief talks of great loss and the need for the bereaved to be supported not "fixed". But reading it I realized how profitable it is in many of life's turbulent ups and downs.