Being There

Being There: How to Love Those Who Are Hurting, Dave Furman (Crossway, 2016)

Are you walking alongside people who are suffering? Perhaps your friend has cancer, your spouse has a disability, your sister struggles with infertility, your work friend has recently lost their parents, or you have a pastoral care role in your church. How do you care for people well and wisely, bringing the aroma of Christ with you?

“The goal of this entire book is to point you to Jesus, who is your only hope, and to walk you through some ways you can love those who hurt with the strength God provides.“ (p. 19)

Dave Furman is a pastor, married with four children, and has lived with intensive nerve pain in his arms for over ten years. He cannot do many things, like hold his children or help with wife with practical tasks, and needs assistance with tasks like putting on his shoes.

“I am writing out of my experience of being helped in incredible ways by others in my disability… This is not another book about suffering for the one who suffers. It’s a book for everyone who knows people who suffer from pain and loss and wants to see the Rock of Ages underneath their feet. I think it’s safe to say that this is a book for all of us.” (p. 18)

The first two chapters give an anchor point. Firstly, he allows the carer to grieve their loss in another’s pain. We can grieve the circumstance, and weep at what we might give up to serve another, yet still have hope that sustains us through it all.

Secondly, Furman encourages the carer to invest in their own relationship with God. Only if we are anchored in Christ and his certain hope can we keep helping, but if we are not walking with God, we will have no strength to help. “Your strength to care for the hurting comes directly from Christ.” (p. 38)

The remainder of the chapters explore practical ways to help those who hurt. These include:

• Being a faithful friend. This includes being silent when needed, sticking around for the long term, being honest about your own life and challenges, forgiving their failings when they are rude, and finding things to laugh about as appropriate. 

• Speaking language of hope. This book is aimed at Christians and he gives some excellent practical examples about how to do this, but he does also address how to speak to unbelievers. 

• Serving like Jesus. Being willing to do the menial tasks, being careful with our words, and analysing our hearts to see if we are serving to be noticed and thanked. 

• Praying for the sufferer, including prayer for healing, and encouraging the sufferer to persist in prayer as well. 

• Being able to have hard conversations, for “when you are caring for the hurting, it is inevitable that their circumstances will bring out their sin”. He encourages us to lovingly and carefully rebuke and bring them to Christ. 

• A list of things not to do. There are similarities here with Nancy Guthrie’s What Grieving People Wish You Knew...  These include don’t be the fix it person, don’t compare, don’t make it their identity, don’t be hyper spiritual and don’t pledge general non-specific help. 

• The church’s role in graciously pursuing and caring for the hurting. 

I really appreciated his honest conclusion:

"I hope you’re not disappointed after reading this book to discover that I don’t have the perfect equation for loving the hurting. There’s no recipe you can follow that will give you the finished product in the precise way you’d like. This side of heaven there will be pain and sorrow, and we will at times be helpful and at other times we will be hurtful. Only Jesus perfectly loves the hurting." (pp. 144-145).

This is a wise and honest guide about the challenge of being a helper, with the encouragement to find your strength in Jesus, who leads us in the way of service.