Did I enter your soul with boots?

I was caused to remember this charming phrase spoken by a Rumanian friend of mine many years ago. She feared that she had been insensitive to me in my hour of need. When our emotions are raw and we share with a friend, we are in a very vulnerable space. At such times we are in need of the kind of deep understanding that someone who has not been there can never give. What can seem to our friend like a perfectly kind and loving response given out of deep concern can feel, to the one in pain, not a tad insensitive. Recognizing she may have stepped over the line in this regard, she asked her question. What she was asking was “When I needed to tread gently, did I in fact walk all over you as it were with field boots?”

By and large we do not deal well with pain. In particular we often do not deal well with the pain we feel when a friend shares his or her pain. If we are good friends we want to help, but how to help is the problem. Over and over (and I have seen this from both sides of the issue) we want to fix the problem for them, and our first thought is to do this by offering unsolicited advice. And it is at this point that we are in grave danger of entering our friend's soul with boots.

I hate it when someone says to me “I know how you feel” (no you don't - boots). It frustrates me when people immediately give advice (boots). When I told one friend I was not particularly looking for advice he told me “I don't take my own advice, but it is good advice” (boots). Perhaps it was, or then again perhaps not, but in any case what is given is usually far easier to say than it is to do, and if you have already tried that and failed, it does not help, really (boots).

I started thinking about this recently when I was listening to a friend. He has problems that overwhelm me just listening to him. I came away thinking that I had not helped him at all. When I took this to the Lord, He told me “You heard him, and that was the very best thing you could have done.” Praying out loud with such a one, and taking the problems just expressed to the Lord, can also help, and this also lets the person know you have heard their pain. On the other hand they may not be ready for it, or they may be mad at God (boots).

It is not rocket science “A closed mouth gathers no foot.” It was not for no reason that the good Lord gave us two ears but just one mouth. James puts it this way “Be swift to hear and slow to speak” (James 1:19).