Pastoral Words to the Hurting

Two days into 2012, and the voice on the twelfth phone call of the day speaks love as real as ever. Unexpected a few years ago, yet as promised over three decades ago love doesn't change though people do. Divorced after triple decades of marriage, a good marriage at that, it hurts being reduced to hearing people of the world say: "Get over the dog that has done you wrong."  "Go on with your life." "You deserve better." Such words even with good intentions are not pastoral. Pastoral words are given with respect and care for the thoughts and emotions of the hurting not for the ones intending to console. When caring for the broken in heart, listen with empathy.

Hearing the voice on the other end of the phone is not always easy, when you are in the deep rivers of responsibilities brought in with the New Year. Pastoral counselors, for sure, have to take care to be able to care for the souls of men and women. When pressures on the emotions of the counselor are too severe, the counselor needs to make clear the unavailability to attend to the needs of the persons in stress. Not intending to blow the opportunity to help, pastoral counselors should prayerfully pause and make sure to be available in authentic ways to the person or persons needing them. The caller had questions. While the caller did not need to hear the response of a pastoral counselor, the needy needed the pastoral counselor to be able to respond with true answers.

Things happen to good people in life, which are not so good. Searching for answers to why things happen is the nature of being human. Pastoral words to the hurting are meant to heal, guide, sustain, and in some cases reconcile. Words of truth should be pastoral, and you do not have to speak as a pastoral counselor to speak the truth in love. How do you tell love of years past that God has to make something out of the non-sense? While it is human to search for answers, it is human, too, not to have the answers desirable in the search.  When you have searched and searched, cried and prayed, and searched until you cried, and cried through your prayers, you hold on to faith, hope and love.

God does love the world and gave Jesus Christ, so that by believing we shall receive. The answer is in life, and the life of believers is eternal. What may not be clear today, shall be made clear by and by. Wait on the Lord, who gives all things to those who trust and obey.

Well, the answer has been found. Pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our resurrected Lord through all human hurt. When we pray the answer may not come from the source of inquiry but from God, and be given to both the researcher and the interviewed. Beyond every intentional question of why, there is an intended response for relief. God has the answer as revealed through Jesus Christ. "For this, too, he died." Forgiveness comes when the answers given in truth are the pastoral words representing God. God is gracious and merciful, righteous and good, so that even the disrespectable actions are forgiven as the reverence to God is given. The answer is wrong is wrong, and cannot be made right, but shall be forgiven, so that the children of God may process and step in the blessedness of reconciliation with God through Christ. The human to human relationship in the end fades by numerous means, but the Divine to human relation as with love cannot be changed though people do.

Prayer:  God of grace and righteousness, have mercy on us and grant us goodness in forgiveness, so as to be at peace within. Amen.