Sit Awhile

A friend told me something difficult she was going through a few months ago. When she shared it, she was not looking for me to comfort her with faith, and looking back now, I know that. I lasted about four minutes before I handed her some anyway.

I wanted her to feel better. And because she was a fellow Christian, I thought bringing up faith would help. That it would land the way I meant it.

She stopped talking after that. She was not upset. But something in the conversation had clearly disconnected.

In my coaching work I hear a version of this often. A woman reaches for a verse in a hard moment. She says it gently. She means it with love. She still cannot understand why it did not land.

Some of us were taught to arm ourselves. Know your verses. Have an answer ready. Be prepared to give a defense of the hope within you. But there is a difference between being ready to explain what we believe when someone asks and being ready to hand it over the moment someone hurts, whether they asked or not.

I have found that reach happens before you decide to make it. Someone brings you something tender, something that does not resolve neatly, and your hand is already moving. Not toward them. Toward the verse. The reframe. The thing that lets you feel useful without having to sit in the discomfort with them. I am guilty of this more than I would like to admit.

It is not malicious. It is a reflex. The hand moves before the heart checks in.

It can feel like care. 

It can feel like faithfulness. It can feel like exactly what a good Christian woman who loves her people should do in that moment.

Something I keep noticing when I read the gospels is that Jesus was asked plenty of hard questions. People brought him their sickness, their shame, their grief. He did not open with scripture. He asked what they wanted. He sat down at the table. He let the woman at the well keep talking long after most people would have moved the conversation along.

He did not throw down a verse and wait for it to work. He stayed until something in the room changed.

Be quick to listen, slow to speak. James 1:19. Not a communication tip. A different way of being in the room entirely.

I wonder, if we do not give our presence enough credit. Ours, or the Spirit already in the room. As if a woman sitting quietly with someone in pain is not already doing something. As if it only counts if we say the right thing out loud.

If you want to go a little deeper, here are a few coaching reflections worth sitting with.

Pick the one that lands.

When someone brings you something hard, what do you notice happening in you before you respond?

Where have you handed someone your faith when what they needed was your attention?

If you said less, what might you actually hear?

I am learning to trust that the Spirit is already in the room, and that showing up might be enough.

If this spoke to you, you can receive every letter here.‍ ‍Join Faithful Reflections.

Monselete Bowden, PCC | Writing for women of faith who are ready to hear themselves more clearly.