"Blessed Are Those Who Comfort Others" Matthew 5:92

She was a widow of just a few weeks and suddenly she was thrust into the heat and beat, the stresses and pressures of a busy holiday season.

Caring family and friends invited her to come and share the holidays with them. Not wishing to be alone, and needing to be surrounded by familiar voices, faces and touches she accepted in high anticipation of the support and lift she needed. After all, that's what holidays are for isn't it? But is that what always happens? I don't think so.

Writing after she returned home with family and friends she said, " Christmas is over... and am I ever glad because it was so much more difficult than I had ever dreamed it would be. So many thoughts, so many feelings, so many emotions swirled around me."

Revealing how she felt deep down inside she went on to say "Here I was surrounded by family and friends. People that I love and people I know love me, but at times I felt like I was on the outside looking in. Everyone was celebrating... laughing, enjoying the setting. And me? I was all alone with my memories of him who no longer laughed or celebrated and it seemed as though no one thought or cared that he was not in our circle this year for the first time. It was as if they felt they would be offending me to even mention his name.

Early in my ministry some non-Adventist neighbors lost their son in his late teens because of a farm accident. Periodically I stopped by for a visit but in my bungling way, I avoided mentioning his name for fear of offending them or opening a painful wound. One day the mother said , "It is all right for you to talk about Paul, in fact I wish you would, it would help me a lot." So I learned to ask about his growing up days, his hobbies, anything to let them talk. I found myself wishing they had taught me practical things like that in college, it would have been better for me than all the hours wasted on algebra which I never needed or used or even Greek. Come to think of it I have used Greek in all these forty plus years and it was somewhat helpful both times.

Writing further about her feelings, this new widow said, "There seemed to be a wall of glass that separated me from them. No mention was made of my mate, no comments about how they missed him this Christmas, how they wished they could hear his laugh again or another of his jokes he loved to tell."

I wondered, who erected this wall of glass, did I? Did they? A wall of glass ... preventing dialog ... preventing openness, heart to heart conversation, applying needed salve to hurting hearts.

I wanted to find a hammer and swing that heavy thing right smack dab into the contrived silence that was created by this amebic emptiness and polite talk that so ably skirted our inner feelings and avoided precious memories. A huge part of me wanted to shout ..."Please, someone. ANYONE. Let me hear you say his name. Please, someone. ANYONE ... let me hear you say you miss him too. Someone, ANYONE... Let me hear you tell something you remember about him. Please, someone, ANYONE ... tell me that you miss him too. Please, someone... ANYONE ... won't you listen to my tears? Your laughter in my loneliness hurts my ears a little but it hurts my heart a lot."

Most people rather than deal with painful emotions and memories, say nothing for fear they will say the wrong thing. We get out our bottles of glass cleaner and unroll our paper towels and quietly start polishing that stupid glass wall We polish it until not one personal fingerprint from the past is in evidence any where. Gotta keep it clean and shiny you know. Glass is less visible that way and we can all keep on pretending.

We need to remember that the hurting ones, the lonely ones in our circle, the ones whose smiles and laughter are hidden safely behind that glass wall. That way you won't know they are crying on the inside while they laugh on the outside. They retreat into the familiarity of their pain. Their aloneness ... their tears.

May I suggest that you find a hammer and break down that glass wall that separates you from those who really need your support and your help?

ONE: Drug store greeting cards are helpful, at least to the companies who produce them. But a card without at least a note, no matter the handwriting, is more helpful than all the nice flowery poems and colorful cards available. The cheer and the love and concern is in what you personally contribute. Do you know where I put those unsigned greeting cards? You know, those whose signature is put on there by the printer, not the sender? Do you know where they end up real fast at my house? YOU GOT THAT RIGHT!

TWO: A phone call carrying your familiar voice, your warmth, your laughter is a turn on for them like no other. I remember calling a lady one evening during the holiday season as she sat in her home snuggled up to the Columbia River in eastern Washington. When I identified myself, she said rather wistfully, " I have sat by this phone all day and yours is the first call I have had, and tomorrow is Christmas." So wrap up a Christmas present to some lonely person on the holidays in the form of a phone call. Their Thanksgiving "choplet" will gobble like it never has before, and their Christmas tree will break into song that will reach even the hard of hearing.

THREE: Invite them into your home. Let them feel the warmth of friendship. No one wins while they play solitaire on a holiday at home. One of our happiest holidays was when we went, after prior arrangement with an orphanage, to take a car load of children into our home for a day. They enjoyed helping set the table, even doing the dishes afterward. They enjoyed the little presents we had for them, and the ride out into the countryside, and we like to think they enjoyed the love we tried to share. But I will always remember the loneliness in their little eyes and the little hands that clutched ours as if to say, "I wish you would keep me, I like it here."

FOUR: Buy a little notebook. Write in it the name and the date of the death of someone special to you. A year later, two years later, three years later, like we do with birthdays and anniversaries, drop a note, make a phone call, do something special to let them know that you too remember and that you too still care. You will have a friend for life. Because you see, they can tell you at the drop of a hat, the day and the hour, even many years later, the exact time that their loved one was called away. What does it cost? Very little. How much time does it take? Just moments, minutes at most. What does it mean to them? You may never know until it happens to you. Try it, you will like it, and they will love it.