February 20, 2022
A young child who, after he was tucked into bed, called to his parents: “Please come here! I’m scared of the dark.”
To which his mother said: “Don’t be afraid, Jesus is there with you.”
After a short pause, the child answered: “Yes, but I’d like someone with skin on.”
Indeed. While some fears have to be faced alone with Jesus, He often means for us to be “skin on” in the lives of our friends who are suffering.
And this does not mean having all the answers. Being present and listening bring a unique measure of healing for our friends.
“ Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.” (Peter Levine from his book: Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness)
Poet David Whyte put it this way:
“The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life... of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence. The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, either of the other or of self.
The touchstone is witness...to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”
