Don’t Speak a Word

By Rev. Aileen Lawrimore

“Oh, she’ll be fine!”  “She’ll love it there!”  “She is so ready for this new stage!” (And my personal favorite . . .) “Honey, it will be much worse on you than it will on her.”

True. Every single statement: absolutely true. In fact, because everyone knows these things are true, you will never need to say them to another mother whose child is going away to college. She already knows this stuff.  Trust me (more on this in a later post).

But NOT saying something can be so difficult can’t it?

For example, if someone has a stomach bug, it takes true restraint for me NOT to tell them to drink plenty of water. Everyone knows that gastrointestinal upset in the extreme can lead to dehydration. I know that everyone knows this. But I feel the urge to tell them, just in case they’ve been living under a rock.

Here’s another one. I’ve actually tried not to say this; I can’t do it. My kids leave this house, keys in their hands, and I’m going to say . . . (say it with me now) . . . “Drive carefully!” I can’t help myself.

There are more critical times than these though, when people seriously do not need our comments.

Like when my sister was pregnant. She had a highly uncommon obstetric liver disorder that caused her to itch constantly, from the inside out. It was miserable, plus it was life-threatening to her and to her baby. She finally got some relief from an internationally renowned specialist and both she and the baby managed just fine, but here’s the thing: long before any doctors knew what was causing her symptoms, complete strangers would come to her aid.

“Have you tried lanolin? That stuff is amazing!”

“No, go with cocoa butter. It’s better.”

“Girl you need to get yourself some hydrocortisone cream. That’ll take care of you.”

Naturally, she had tried all these things and dozens more before she got her diagnosis. She knew all that and was painfully tired of hearing such things. In fact, not only did she not need to hear their advice, she really needed not to talk about her maddening condition at all.

The truth is, people usually do not need us to correct, advise, counsel, or admonish them. They need only for us to be with them: completely—silently—with them.

 “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 2:13

Aileen Lawrimore is minister, teacher, speaker, and writer. This article originally appeared on her blog, Aileen goes on…and on (http://www.aileenonline.com/b2/).