Healing Rays of Righteousness

It is wonderful to hear stories of answered prayers for successful surgery, cancer cured, health restored, protection and safety in dangerous storms or threatening violence. I rejoice with all recipients of answered prayer and gratefully praise God for his intervention and help.

But there are times when sincere and fervent prayers are not answered as we would desire, and our life is painfully shattered with grievous loss of spouse or child, and our future is emptied of dreams and expectations. We weep, we groan, and we cry out “O God, why?” 

There are many psalms that ask this same question. Psalm 10:1 – Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? Psalm 22:1 – My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? Yes, we may be crying out “Why, God” but we really want to know “Where are you, God.”

Feeling alone, unloved, and forsaken by God, we wish for someone to sit and cry with us. But feeling shameful because of our tears, we are reluctant to ask someone to just sit with us. But when someone does take the time to sit and cry with us, they become to us God’s heart and hands of caring love in human flesh and presence.

During these days of Lenten self-reflections, I am hearing God’s reprimands for not responding to the cries of others as he would want me to do. Even though I have appropriately done so many times during my chaplaincy ministry, God is reminding me of the more recent times that I have excused myself as being too busy or being already burdened with my own crying heart, I did not want to give compassionate attention to the cry of another.

But God keeps reminding me that helping each other to cry is his intended primary role in our shared life with others. Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan writes this intention in large letters.

Also, the apostle Paul encourages the Corinthian Christians in this “crying” ministry with his greeting to them. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”(2 Cor. 1:3-5). And he also talks about this caring, sensitive, comforting lifestyle in his letter to the Romans, “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”  (Rm. 12:15).

God’s intention is also vividly declared in the story that I heard told of a little girl who got home from school unusually late one evening, only to find a daddy who was very unhappy about her lateness. He asked his little girl why she was late. She said, “Because my friend broke her dolly.”  Her daddy then said, “Oh, okay, so you stayed with her to fix it?”  He did not expect her gentle reply, “No, Daddy, I stayed with her to help her cry.”

We often do not do this very well, because our full schedules keep us busy and disconnected from another’s pain. But God is always giving us opportunities to hear someone’s cry, to feel someone’s pain, and to be God’s compassionate presence in the midst of their hurt.

In his book, Out of Solitude, Henri Nouwen says, “When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand.”

Perhaps the most important thing we can do in life is to “weep with those who weep.”  I pray that we will be more attentive to nurturing within ourselves a Spirit-led flexibility that allows us to step away from our busyness and sit with those who need a friend to “help them cry.”

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Ray M. Geigley – “Healing Rays of Righteousness”– www.geigler.wordpress.com – 4/2/25