Show Up and Shut Up—What to do for a Friend in Crisis

When my 3 year old daughter, Annie, lay unresponsive on an emergency room gurney after suffering a severe brain injury, Bill and I didn’t need friends to tell us everything was going to be okay. Nor did we need anyone telling us that all things work together for good. What we needed was for someone to help bear the suffocating pain of watching our child teeter between life and death.Someone did.A seasoned chaplain, policeman, father and grandfather, our friend Rick appeared out of nowhere. He stood silently beside us in that emergency room and didn’t leave. I don’t remember a thing he said.In the Old Testament, when Job lost his children, his home, his livelihood and then his health, his friends came to comfort him. And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. Job 2:13Smart friends.It’s been said that the greater the loss, the less words are necessary. Job’s friends knew this--at least at the beginning.Conversely, I heard another story of a pastor who walked into an ICU waiting room to console a couple whose adult son was on life-support. The pastor talked at length, using every Bible verse he could remember. He wasn’t very helpful. In fact, listening to him had an opposite effect. He backed his dump truck onto those parents and crushed them with his words. It wasn't as if this couple didn't believe all those verses, they just didn’t need to hear them all recited at that particular moment.The lesson? When your friend goes through their worst loss imaginable, don’t worry about what you’re going to say. Just show up. Let your presence speak eloquently that they’re not alone.That’s all.