Sanctified Sympathy Series

Sometimes you have to hurt others to help them. Iona Henry's

case is a prime example. She had been in the hospital for 83 days on

Demerol. She became dependent upon this drug for sleep, and

escape, for she could not stand to think of her future without her

husband and two children, all of whom had been killed. The doctor

told her she had to learn to sleep on her own, but she just could not

do it without Demerol.

One day a nurse came into her room and whispered to her, "I

heard something awful today in the nurse's dining room." "Tell me!

What did you hear?" responded Iona. The nurse let her have it.

They are saying that you are becoming a dope addict. Iona became

so furious. She could never remember a time when she was so

completely angry. She blasted their gossiping tongue, and vowed to

show the smart alecks she was no dope addict.

In a fit of rage she picked up a book and began to read. It was

already hot, and her angry rebellion made it worse. Her bed was

soaked with perspiration. When the two innocent student nurses

came with her Demerol, they stood wide-eyed in shock when she

refused. "The doctor ordered it," one of them stammered. "I don't

care," she raged. "Take it away." So they did. Iona said she felt

like the three Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace, and equally

determined. It was a night of horror, but she was committed to die

before she would ask for her Demerol.

She fought all night, and wanted to give up a dozen times, but just

before dawn she dozed off. When she woke up she was greeted like

a victorious queen. She had conquered Demerol, but she, and

everybody else, knew it never would have happened if she had not

been motivated by strong anger. Anger can be a friend that gives us

the energy we need to fight an enemy. Anger can be good, and the

nurse's did her a big favor by making her angry. Inoa's need at that

point was not for sympathy. What she needed was an internal

motivation to fight a weakness that could have destroyed her.

Job's situation was not the same things at all. Yet his friends

provoked him to anger. It is possible that the rage in his heart, that

kept him fighting back against their accusations, was of some value.

It did motivate him to think, and argue, and could have been good

for his circulation. There was no hint, however, that the friends

were acting in Job's best interest. They were just stubbornly

interested in getting Job to conform to what they felt was a proper

response to tragedy. The anger they kindled only made Job's misery

worse. Job did not need the same medicine that Iona needed. His

need was for a bridge of sympathy from which he could cross over

from despair to new hope. We often fail, as did Job's friends,

because we do not diagnose the need properly.

I must confess that I have assumed the same thing as Job's

friends were assuming. I have dealt with suffering people, thinking

that what they needed was an intellectual explanation. Like Job's

friends, I was too quick to give what I had, rather than listen to what

the sufferer needed. Someone wrote, "The intellect alone never

produced real sympathy. The will alone never can. It is born of

loving desire working with and in these." The comforter must be

ever asking, what does the sufferer need, and not, what can I do? If

you ask this latter question, you are striving to meet your need, and

not theirs. This is where Job's friends failed him. They did not love

enough to enter his feelings. They sought to change his feelings by

their intellect, and this makes people feel rejected, for they are not

being accepted as they are.

If you observe Jesus in relation to all kinds of people, you will see

that He always accepted people where they were. He did not

approve of where they were necessarily, nor did He expect that they

would stay where they were, but He always started with them where

they were, and not where He thought they should be. That is what

sympathy is. It is accepting a person where they are, even when

where they are is not acceptable. The woman at the well is a good

example. She was not living a life style acceptable to Jesus, but He

accepted her where she was, and the result was a changed life style.

This is what sympathy is all about. It is the ability to be with

another person where they are, and feel what they feel, and