Recovering from the Reckless Rebuke of a Friend

I thought I was safe. My heart was beating with the throbs of shattered hopes when my friend asked me what was wrong. I hesitated for a moment. It takes a lot of energy to expose a wound. There is a certain amount of trust involved. That is because we never really know how someone will respond to our pain. Will they blow us off with a pat solution to our problem? Or will they become uncomfortable and quickly excuse themselves?

But this was a good friend—a praying friend! Surely, they would say the right thing.

After all, I was in church. The sun was shining through the cross-shaped stained-glass window and the crowd was slowly retreating from the cavernous sanctuary. Yes, the service was over, but I was afraid to leave. I didn’t want to go back out into the world. The world can be such a horrible place. I just wanted to stay in that place of safety.

So I took a risk. I exposed my heart. I told of the disappointment and horrors of living in a broken/fallen world. The tears were like battering rams against my eyelids and I was ready for them to fall as I told my friend my troubles in halting sentences. I suppose they may have seemed small in the grand scheme of life, but at that moment they felt like giants lined up on the horizon. I suppose I simply needed a hug, a gesture of peace. Instead, I got a rebuke.

My friend told me I was going about things all wrong. I should have done this; not that. They asked me why my expectations were so high. Didn’t I know better?

I stood there dumbfounded while they admonished me. They went so far as to grab my shoulders and press their words into my body. Then they gave me a label I was not prepared for. They knew I had been hurt, and worse, they said the hurt was my fault.

I was shell shocked. Suddenly I went from being safe to absorbing the devastating impact of a wrecking ball.

Have you ever experienced this? Have you taken a risk and found rebuke? How did you respond? More importantly, did you ever recover?

The halls of friendship are littered with the bleached bones of broken relationships. One reaches a certain age and realizes how many have come and gone over the years. We linger over the memories. We console ourselves with the knowledge that we protected ourselves by walking away. But the pain lingers. Like a ghost or ghoul, they haunt us in our dreams. Sometimes with howls of regret.

The worst kind of scorn is silence.

But that is often how I choose to walk away. I do not say a word. I simply cease to speak. Because words are what caused the problem in the first place. I just want the pain to stop. So, I choose the door marked “Exit” because it’s easier.

My friend doesn’t even know what they did wrong. They think it was all a misunderstanding. But I know the truth.

But if I’m being honest, I know one cannot possibly understand the pain of another. One who has never struggled in marriage cannot understand one who has. Just as one who has never struggled with addiction can know the agonies of one who is addicted.

If I dig deeper, I can at least acknowledge how frustrating it is to watch a hurting friend suffer. My personal experience tells me humans are restless. We hurl “words of wisdom” at them because we don’t want to take the time to participate in their suffering. We don’t want to weep with those who weep. Weeping takes time and we are busy. We are pulled away by our own responsibilities and obligations. So we toss a few thoughts at them and hope they land well. Then we console ourselves at having been a “good friend”. We told them what they needed to hear. Sure, it may have landed wrong, but it was still the right thing to say. Wasn’t it?

We quote bible verses like Proverbs 27:6, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” So there!

Friendship over. No takebacks.

Years ago I had a treasured friend who walked out of my life without a word. We had plans for the weekend and she decided she had something more interesting to do so she bailed on me. I was sorely disappointed and told her she was rude. She never spoke to me again. She evaporated like morning mist. There’s a word for it now: Ghosting. I console myself with the knowledge that this is the true test of friendship. A real friend forgives. So how come I struggle to hold myself to the same standard?

I have judged my church friend through the lens of pain. I don’t trust her anymore. But why do I hold her to such a high standard? She is only human. Haven’t I done the same? Haven’t I offered advice to someone who didn’t want it or wasn’t prepared to receive what I had to say? Wasn’t I too in a hurry or unwilling to take time to weep with those who weep?

I don’t want to think about that. I want to believe I am the hero of this story. I am the perfect friend! But I am guilty too. We all are.

There is a cost when we forgive someone.

We have to set aside our pain and say, “I choose to love you anyway.” Sometimes this feels like a little death. After all, we want justification for the wrong done. We want our friend to “pay a price” for hurting us. We want to exact our “pound of flesh.”

And this is when the gospel makes me really uncomfortable. I hurt God when I sin. Sometimes I am so twisted up in my sin that I can’t see the right side up. And that is why God intervened. He sent his son Jesus to bear the punishment—the full wrath of God—for the sin of world—including my sin. I hurt God and he took my punishment. He became the extracted “pound of flesh” that should have been my penance to give. This humbles me. He tells me that if I love him, I need to also love my neighbor as myself. That means I need to forgive my neighbor. This makes me very uncomfortable.

Grace often feels extremely unnatural. But somehow, we must accept it, and then give it as well.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

Come, come, whoever you are. Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vow. A thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come. -Rumi

It takes tremendous courage to forgive someone who has wounded us. Today my simple prayer is, “God, help me to forgive!”