“I don’t know who I can tell.”

Those words can accompany many kinds of suffering.

A marriage is falling apart. A child walks away from the faith. A family learns that someone they love is struggling with serious mental illness. A devastating diagnosis arrives. A spouse is battling an addiction. A parent is estranged from an adult child. Someone is carrying a grief that few people around them even know exists.

Some suffering is visible. Much of it is not.

And often one of the most painful parts of suffering is the loneliness that accompanies it. A person may sit beside us in church every Sunday while carrying a burden that feels almost unbearable, wondering whether it is safe to tell anyone.

The church should be the place where suffering Christians know they do not have to walk alone.

Scripture tells us, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). That sounds simple. But what does burden-bearing actually look like when someone entrusts us with something deeply painful?

We may feel pressure to have answers. We may want to explain, advise, correct, or somehow make the situation better. But often what a suffering person needs first is something much simpler: a Christian brother or sister willing to draw near and remain there.

Come Alongside with Humility

Paul tells us, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3).

That is a good posture to bring into the suffering of another person.

When someone shares a painful situation with us, our first task is not to analyze how they got there. It is to love the person who is standing in front of us.

There may eventually be questions to ask, wisdom to offer, or even areas where loving correction is appropriate. But suffering calls for discernment. There is a time to speak and a time simply to come alongside.

Paul reminds us that God “comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction” (2 Cor. 1:4). Our own experience of weakness and suffering should make us gentler with the suffering of others.

Richard Sibbes captures something beautiful about the tenderness of Christ in The Bruised Reed. He writes, “In pursuing his calling, Christ will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, in which more is meant than spoken, for he will not only not break nor quench, but he will cherish those with whom he so deals.”¹

Cherish.

That is a striking word.

To cherish someone who is bruised is to treat that person as precious rather than as a problem to be solved. It means approaching weakness with tenderness and care. Christ does not handle bruised reeds roughly, and those of us who belong to him should increasingly reflect that same gentleness toward one another.

A suffering friend does not need to feel examined. They need to know they are loved.

Listen Before You Try to Fix

One of the greatest gifts we can give a suffering person is our attention.

Paul writes, “We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all” (1 Thess. 5:14).

Notice that Paul does not prescribe the same response for everyone. Different people need different kinds of care.

Someone crushed beneath a painful burden may not need immediate correction or instruction. They may simply need encouragement and help.

J. C. Ryle wisely observed, “Proper and correct counsel often falls dead and useless on a heavy heart. Cold advice often makes us shut up, shrink and withdraw into ourselves, when tendered in the day of trouble. But genuine sympathy in such a day will call out all our better feelings, if we have any, and obtain an influence over us when nothing else can.”²

There is certainly a time for counsel. But wisdom recognizes when a heavy heart first needs sympathy.

Be the kind of friend you would want in a crisis.

Listen well. Be slow to speak.

Hurting people often do not need advice unless they ask for it. And when they do ask, we can offer it humbly, acknowledging that we do not have all the answers.

Proverbs reminds us, “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent” (Prov. 10:19). There is wisdom in restraint.

Enter into your friend’s grief. Let them see your tears. Let them know their pain affects you because it hurts to see them suffer.

Romans 12:15 tells us to “weep with those who weep.”

Sometimes that is the ministry.

Don’t rush to fix their pain. Take time to lament with them.

Stay When the Crisis Is No Longer New

If someone has entrusted a burden to you, be willing to walk with them for the long haul.

Many forms of suffering do not resolve quickly. A crisis that feels urgent today may become a sorrow carried for months or years.

In the beginning, people often ask questions and offer help. But as time passes, the attention fades.

The suffering has not.

Sometimes we hesitate to ask because we are afraid of reminding someone of something painful. But they have not forgotten. Often, they are longing for someone else simply to remember.

Reach out. Ask how they are doing.

This does not mean making their suffering the subject of every conversation. It means faithfully following through. A simple text message, phone call, or conversation after church that says, “I’ve been thinking about you. How are you doing?” can be a profound encouragement.

I remember sharing a deeply painful trial with someone in ministry whom I respected as mature and wise. After I poured out my heart through many tears, I never heard from them again about the matter.

No text. No email. No phone call. Nothing.

That silence hurt more than I expected.

When someone is already experiencing painful rejection or loss, silence from a Christian friend can feel like another rejection.

Looking back, I hope this person simply did not know how to respond. But the experience taught me something I have never forgotten:

Hurting people rarely need perfect words. They need faithful presence.

Stay.

Listen.

Pray.

Continue to walk beside your friend even when you do not know what to say.

Pray—and Let Them Know You Are Praying

We often tell suffering friends, “I’ll pray for you.”

Then life moves on, and sometimes we forget.

Instead, be intentional.  The Apostle Paul certainly was. He let the church know he was praying for them and even what he was praying.

Pray specifically. And tell your friend when you have prayed.

“I prayed for you this morning.”

“You came to mind today, and I prayed for you.”

Those few words can carry tremendous weight for someone who feels alone.

Better yet, pray with your friend. Meet occasionally for coffee. Pray over the phone. Find them before or after church and pray together.

Pray for God’s comfort, grace, wisdom, patience, and peace. Pray for endurance in the waiting. Pray for relationships affected by the suffering. Pray for protection from despair. Pray that God would accomplish his purposes even in circumstances neither of you understands.

James tells us that “the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16). And Jesus reminds us that we “ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1).

Prayer does more than ask God to change circumstances. Praying faithfully with another Christian communicates something deeply important:

I am not carrying this burden alone.

Become a Church with Large and Tender Hearts

Charles Spurgeon once urged Christians, “Seek to have large hearts, and tender hearts, for the world is full of sorrow.”³

That is a beautiful description of what the church should become.

We need hearts large enough to make room for suffering that is complicated, prolonged, uncomfortable, or difficult to understand—and tender enough to draw near rather than pull away.

The church should be the safest place for Christians to bring their deepest sorrows.

Hurting people do not need suspicion. They need shepherding. They do not need quick fixes. They need patient companions willing to sit with them in grief, remind them of God’s promises, and point them to Christ again and again.

David Powlison described one mark of Christian maturity this way: “You take the pains and confusion of others to heart.”⁴

That is part of the beauty of the communion of saints. God often ministers his comfort to his suffering children through the ordinary presence of other believers.

A meal.

A text.

A prayer.

A listening ear.

Someone who remembers six months later.

Someone who stays.

None of these things appears extraordinary. Yet in the hands of God, they can become profound means of encouragement to a weary Christian.

Ultimately, our care for suffering people reflects the Savior who first drew near to us.

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Ps. 34:18).

Jesus does not love his people from a distance. He entered our suffering. He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. (Isaiah 53:4)  He knows what it is to weep, to be rejected, to suffer, and to grieve.

As we draw near to hurting brothers and sisters, we reflect something of his compassionate heart.

Every believer will eventually need someone to come alongside them in suffering. And every believer will have opportunities to become that person for someone else.

The question is not whether suffering people are sitting in our churches.

The question is whether they will know that it is safe to tell us.

Sources

1. Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, “Christ Will Not Break the Bruised Reed.”

2. J. C. Ryle, “The Ruler of the Waves.”

3. Charles H. Spurgeon, “Burden-Bearing,” sermon on Galatians 6:2, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 49, preached August 26, 1886.

4. David Powlison, How Does Sanctification Work?