Everything seems to be broken

It is an odd thing, I have discovered during my nearly three years as a pastor, to be entrusted with people’s pain. 

It’s not an everyday occurrence, but
today pain came calling.  Two conversations with two people, both
carrying crippling burdens of hurt and despair, sorrow and longing, both
dealing with the complex cocktails of physical, spiritual, mental, and
relational pain that characterize so many lives, both searching
desperately for a word of hope, comfort, or encouragement.  ”Do you have
a verse for me?”  ”Some advice?” “Wisdom?”  ”Help?” “Compassion?”  It
can be a simultaneously wonderful and helpless feeling to be invited
into these deep and dark places.  And it is scary to realize how little I
often have to say.

Today’s conversations weren’t necessarily
any more or less heartbreaking than others I have been a part of, but
that didn’t make them any easier.  I still find it hard to know what to
do.  You ask questions, you listen, you invite elaboration, you listen,
you gently probe and push and pull.  You listen.  And sometimes you end
up back where you started.  At one point, after a number of attempts to
isolate “the problem,” the face across from me just stopped and looked
vacantly toward the tree of life hanging that
graces the wall of my study.  A few tears appeared.  Then a few more.
 A couple of  half-sentences were haltingly attempted.  And then,  “I
don’t know… everything just seems to be broken.”