Job teaches us that helping those in overwhelming pain requires a careful balance between listening and understanding their unique agony while not making them feel too different or isolated.
BY MIRIAM AMENT AND EFREM EPSTEIN
Job is the biblical poster child for acute suffering. When Satan makes a bet with God that the righteous and prosperous Job will cease to praise God in the absence of worldly comforts, God takes the bet and allows Satan to torment Job, to remove his wealth, kill his children and destroy his health. Job’s pain in the wake of these stacked losses is perhaps unimaginable to many of us.
But then again maybe we, or those we know and love, have indeed experienced this kind of agony. What unfolds next in the Book of Job can teach us a lot about how, and how not, to help those in dire anguish.
Like Job, many people struggling want more than anything else to be seen and heard. This is the first lesson we can take from the book. And like Job, all too often we are surrounded by peers who, often with good intentions, want to assist or fix us when what we need at the outset is for someone to listen and validate our feelings and experience. In fact, suicide prevention training by groups like ASIST teach us to think of this in three steps: first, connect with our friend/peer, then once we connect we move to trying to understand their situation, and then — and only then — look to assist. Read more HERE.