The Power of Mat-Carrying Friends
Even without fully understanding someone’s pain, we can carry our friends to Jesus, offering the love, comfort, and support only He provides.
“Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men.”
Mark 2:3-5 (NKJV)
“Mom, you need to come see this!” My daughter’s muffled voice rose over the steam of my evening shower. “Hurry!” she said with more knocks on the door.
Turning off the water, I toweled dry, threw on jeans and a sweatshirt, and quickly brushed my dripping hair. I stepped out the front door into the chilly December air where my seven children had gathered. The porch light showed several families spread across our front lawn singing a Christmas carol. Two white plastic tables were decked with hot cocoa and goodies, gifts and filled stockings for my children and we spent the next hour singing, talking, and finding joy in a season that felt unbearable.
We were facing our first Christmas after the sudden death of my husband. Everything felt shattered, every task insurmountable. That day had been particularly tough and I’d finally hoped a hot shower might help.
What the hot shower couldn’t do these friends did.
I learned that night that we don’t have to experience someone’s unique pain to comfort them it.
These were all intact families. Not one of those friends had lost a spouse. None had lost a parent as a young child. And while I know enough of their stories and humanity to know they’ve walked their share of suffering, they hadn’t walked ours.
Becoming a Mat-Carrier
We can let our unfamiliarity with a particular kind of suffering paralyze us from stepping in to help.
It’s easy to feel ill-equipped when we haven’t experienced someone’s pain like cancer, unwanted divorce, loss of a child or spouse, a chronic issue or disability. We’re an outsider to their world, their particular pain points and comforts. What do we say and not say? What will really help and won’t fall short?
But we don’t have to experience someone’s unique pain to help them in it.
We see this in the gospel account of four men who carried the mat of their paralyzed friend to Jesus. Jesus was preaching in a house so crowded the men couldn’t get through the door. So they hoisted their paralyzed friend to the roof, cut a hole, and lowered him to Jesus’s feet. Jesus not only healed the paralytic but saved him as well. (Mark 2:1-12)
These mat-carriers could all walk. They didn’t know the paralytic’s particular pain. But they didn’t let their lack of personal experience with this disability or disease keep them from helping their friend.
We can all be mat-carriers even when we haven’t walked our friends’ pain. One of my mat-carriers caroling on our lawn that December evening later taught me that when someone is going through difficulty, we can ask God how to help, expect him to reveal a need, and then follow his nudge.
Ask God How You Can Help
These three steps have freed me as I come alongside others walking hardship I haven’t experienced.
- Instead of staying stuck, I ask God to keep me spiritually sensitive to their need,
- Look for him to show their need, and
- Follow his prompting instead of second-guessing it.
We can all be mat carriers. We don’t need identical experiences to come alongside someone in their suffering. While we can’t fix their pain, we can shower them with the love of the One who can.
Mat-carrying friends know they don’t have to experience someone’s unique pain to help them in it.
In His Word
2 Corinthians 1:3-4, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (ESV)
Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (ESV)
As you read these scriptures, consider how God’s comfort equips you to extend His love and support to others in their moments of need.
In Your Life
Have you ever felt paralyzed to help a friend who’s going through difficulty? Why does love of a friend surpass having perfect insight into someone’s pain?
We Recommend
If you’re walking through pain you never saw coming, or you’re coming alongside a friend in hers, find real hope and help to take steps forward in Lisa’s book, Life Can Be Good Again: Putting Your World Back Together After It All Falls Apart.
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Want more encouragement to walk through grief? Get Lisa’s free guide 7 Days of Hope for Your Shattered Heart.
