I'm Sorry

One of the things I'm learning about human nature is that we've somehow been taught it is not okay to not be okay. We've been taught that even if we do admit something is wrong we're immediately supposed to brush it off and tell people "oh well, I'll be fine, it'll be okay." If we do go into detail about why things are hard, and somehow take up the entire conversation with someone, many of us feel guilty about that. We "should" have just said we'll be okay and then asked them how they were doing. That's what we should be doing. Has anyone else ever felt like this? I know I have. I ran into this all the time as a hospital chaplain, people would tell me that life actually was not okay for them right now, and when I would say "I am sorry" they would brush me off "oh it's okay, I'll be fine." I run into this all the time with the teenagers I've loved over the years. Somehow we have created a culture where the socially acceptable mantra is "It's okay." It's okay that my boyfriend dumped me. It's okay that my parents fight all the time. It's okay that my teachers don't take me seriously. It's okay that adults in my life don't take the time to really listen to me. It's okay that I have cancer, I'll be fine.

You know what, it's actually not okay. And in my opinion, it's okay to say it's not okay. Many people can't say this for themselves, so I've learned that one of the most important things we can do for a person who is struggling or suffering is to say it for them. I've done this a lot, and the response is always amazing. It usually invites deeper conversation. Sometimes it will bring to the surface those tears that have been threatening to spill over--the tears the individual is desperately trying to stuff down in effort to prove that she really is "okay." A student I know well actually wrote a blog post on her own blog about the time I did this with her. These words that she wrote have meant the world to me, because it shows me how simple, yet essential it is to give people to space to not be okay. Here's what she has to say, in her own words:

so tonight when i was at church we were given the opportunity to talk to the person next to us and share about a time when God has gotten us through a rough time. I got the chance to talk to Sarah, which I am so happy i did because she taught me something tonight that i will for sure keep with me for the rest of my life. when she asked me to share i told her that the rough time is now and thats really true. like right now my life is just…. haha let’s just say there have been a lot of tears in the last month and i’m really surprised i havent run out of them yet. and when she asked me if i felt betrayed (I had a sense as to what she was going through, I didn't just randomly guess the feeling "betrayed"), i said yes and she responded by saying “im sorry”, and after hearing that phrase so much i just automatically said “its okay”. but then she said something to me that no one had ever said before. she told me “no, its not okay. it sucks. its okay to say it sucks” and for the first time i realized that is right. its crazy to think that there are so many times people have offered me sorrys and i’ve just kind of turned them down by saying “its okay”. i guess its because i’ve heard “i’m sorry” so many times in my life that it stopped meaning something to me… and then later another leader came up to me and asked me how i was on a scale from 0-10 and i told her -5, and of course she replied with “i’m sorry” and once again i said “its okay” and she looked me straight in the eye and said “no, its not okay. its okay to say ‘yeah it sucks’”. words cannot describe how much what those two said to me tonight meant to me. cause it does suck right now, and because of them i’m not afraid to say it does anymore. so, for anyone reading this, if someone says “im sorry” to you when you’re feeling as crappy as i am right now, don’t be afraid to say “yeah, it sucks” because they mean their sorry…. they really do care even though it might seem like they don’t because others don’t. alright, thats it.

She's right. Validating someone's feelings, reminding them that it's okay to not be okay, letting them feel whatever it is they are feeling, these things aren't difficult. But they give a person so much freedom to truly feel, and I have come to believe that it is only when we truly allow ourselves to feel, to fully experience the emotions we're dealing with, only then can we begin to experience healing. As Jerry Sittser writes in his amazing book on grief, A Grace Disguised, "the quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise.”