For many of us in leadership we have a desire to help others, encourage others, to see them grow. The problems comes when they don’t grow the way we envisioned, in other words jumping in our boat and signing on as ‘yes’ folk to our plans. The problems come when the stories are more complex than we had penciled in. The problems come when they seem to still be weeping longer than we feel is right.
I was struck today in an online conversation where I had acknowledged that what I was posting was a gut response to other comments and that I was hurting because of them. One later comment said I was not to be hurt, with the intention for me to be encouraged in the wider context of the reply but I did not hear it that way in the moment. Due to the hurt I was feeling this later comment stood out to me and led me to reflect more on ideas at the back of my head around Romans 12 where we are called to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, and a book I read earlier this year, with one of our children, called ‘The Big Wave’ by Pearl Buck.
Romans does not have a time frame from which we move on with those postures. There is not a point at which we must no longer celebrate or stop weeping, we are simply to be there alongside them. In the Big Wave a young boy faces the loss of his family and I was struck by how the father of the boy’s friend gives him the space to mourn, where he is not rushed, he is not asked to process, to talk but to simply be and there is no fear in the presence of this young boy’s grief. There is simply presence and in the presence a recognition of the grief.
In the midst of this upcoming season there may well be folk around us for whom their stories do not fit into the neat tidy tinsel topped plans we have and the services we are sorting. We may even have planned something for those ‘grieving’ to acknowledge its not easy for everyone but what if that planned event is not what they need but presence. The presence of someone else who won’t correct them or point out the places they can be joyful and grateful. They just want us to rejoice or weep or both with them but not tell them how they will do either. Not to be afraid of the mess, the tears, but who will have the quiet confidence of the Spirit of God to sit and be present. To be still and know that God is God, who is at work and will not cease.
Joshua's Tree Rooted 