Rejoicing and mourning

One thing I've learned over the past six months is how hard it is to find the balance between letting people grieve and mourn when appropriate but at the same time helping encourage them to find hope. I have had a hard time finding this balance not only with family and friends in my life, but most importantly with my PT patients.

At my inpatient rehab clinical at Duke in North Carolina all of my patients had just undergone a very life altering event, like a stroke or spinal cord injury, and they would have very emotional days because they were grieving over the loss of functioning like they used to in their life- whether it was their inability to walk or the reality that they would never be able to use the right side of their body again. There were many days that the patient would cry throughout the whole PT session because they were working so hard to get back to their prior level of activity but they just were unable to do the same things as before. One of my patients was a 60 year-old African American woman who had a stroke. She would try so hard to move her right arm and leg but she would get so frustrated and start saying over and over again in her Southern accent "I just want to be able to make Thanksgiving dinner for my family..." and then the tears would start flowing. Another patient was a young gentleman with a brain tumor who had both severe physical and mental deficits from the huge mass in his brain but all he wanted to do was be able to sit on the floor and play with his two kids but he didn't have the strength to do so. He had short term memory loss so everyday we would have to remind him why his limbs weren't working like they used to and why he couldn't get on the floor to play with his kids.
 Here in Colorado my patients are not in as serious of condition but several of my patients have really severe chronic pain. One patient has had 4 hip surgeries in the last four years and he is still unable to walk and he will probably end up getting a total hip replacement at the age of 26. He has two little ones at home that he is not able to walk or play with. He hasn't been able to work for years and he is frustrated that he is not able to provide for his family. He told me he hasn't been happy a single day since his initial injury. Another patient was in a serious car accident 3 years ago and he has had shooting nerve pain in his entire right arm and he has not been able to use it at all since the injury. He has been unable to find any pain relief and he can't find a job that he can do without the use of that arm. Everyday he shows up for PT his eyes are completely blood shot because he's in so much pain and he hasn't been able to sleep for over an hour at a time since his initial injury 3 years ago. This patient said there hasn't been a moment that he hasn't thought about his shooting pain since the car accident.
I could continue on and on with lots of stories like these because on my clinicals I've seen so many people going through some really tough stuff. I've been reminded often of how everyone around me is fighting some kind of struggle. Like Plato said "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." The question is how do you have sympathy for people when you really have no idea what they're going through? I can try to put myself in their shoes and understand what they're going through but I will never fully be able to appreciate their situation. The truth is that I really have no idea how many physical, psychological, and spiritual challenges they are facing.
I know that we are called to love these people and to help carry their burdens but what does that look like? 1 Peter 3:9 says to "Have sympathy, have brotherly love, and have a tender heart."
I know that I completely fail at all of the above. I don't do a good job of having compassion on these patients, or on people in general. Henri Nouwen states, "The definition of compassion is to suffer with." I fully realize that I don't do a good job of suffering with the people in my life. Instead I will just feel bad for them but I don't feel bad with them. I don't ever take the time to grieve with them or mourn with them. I always try to encourage them and cheer them up but it's important for me to give them that time to grieve and mourn and then to meet them where they're at in their spot of grieving and mourning.
The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 says "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." and Romans 12:15 says "Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn."
I wish I could say that I'm good at both those things but I'm really not. I still have a lot of growth that needs to happen in this area of my life.
The rejoicing part I'm good at. But that's because it's easy! Everyone enjoys celebrating with others over the victories in life. The other day one of my patients was taken off his rotator cuff "no resistance" restrictions by his surgeon so I was talking to him in my really high pitched excited voice as I went to go pick up the 1 lb. weight that he was going to do bicep curls with. Everyone in the clinic was making fun of me because I was so excited for him! But I was just trying to celebrate with him because he could start lifting weights (even though it was 1 lb) for the first time in 3 months! I have lots of other examples of rejoicing with those who are rejoicing. For example, I love birthdays and I love making a huge deal out of them because I love celebrating another year of life for that person and I love celebrating having that person in my life. Another example would be how several of my best friends have gotten engaged in the last few months and I have seriously gone ECSTATIC. But again this is easy to do. It's so fun and so exciting!
The challenge I have for myself is to not just do the easy part of rejoicing, celebrating, and encouraging. I want to do the challenging stuff, and I want to go to the tough places and I want to meet those people in their suffering, mourning and grieving.
Send up some prayers my way as I start this new challenge! And feel free to ask me about how it's going a little while from now ; )