Comfort and Joy: Being Generous with Our Presence

I went to the funeral of someone I had never met. I met his parents once, maybe twice. He was beautiful and his life was sadly short. I wanted to be there, to witness the pain of those who loved him and somehow, in some small way, to share in their suffering.

This lovely baby boy was stillborn. His mother never got to hold him in her arms and watch him breath. I sat there at his funeral feeling like I wasn’t sure what to do. I had suffered a miscarriage so I had some small idea what it was like, but I also know you can never compare one person’s pain to another.

It will likely not be the thing you want to do. Loss is awkward and grief is messy. Some of us may even have the instinct to run as watching someone else’s suffering dredges up old wounds of our own. No amount of generosity in the traditional sense will make a loss less painful, but we can be generous with our presence. We can be there to do little chores, provide a listening ear, or sometimes just sit and hold someone’s hand.

This doesn’t have to be just times of loss either. Medical situations, even routine ones, can be fraught with uncertainty. When my mother was having major thyroid surgery, my boss told me to leave work and go sit with my dad at the hospital. She had recently lost both her parents within a year of each other, and as a temp, I had been afraid to ask for the time off. I was grateful that she recognized how much it meant just to be there.

We don’t even have to limit ourselves to painful times, though those are usually where we need the extra encouragement. Most of us are eager to go to weddings, graduations, birthdays and other happy occasions. Our presence is needed there too.

As we get older, there are fewer ways that we are celebrated. There a lot in the first couple decades of life but then it all seems to be rather routine. Last year I threw myself a birthday party because, if I’m honest, I wanted to celebrate and I was afraid if I didn’t, no one else would. But my friends were very generous to me. Not because they brought gifts (though some of them did) but because they came.

Don’t forget the power of our presence to comfort or encourage someone else. It will be a sacrifice of your time, and certainly your heart as well. When we are willing to set aside our own discomfort whether to lift up or console someone else, we begin to recognize the traits in a heart of generosity.

Next – Inspire Not Require: Being an Example of Generosity to My Kids