On Doing Nothing

"A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity." Proverbs 17:17

A longtime friend told me something years ago that has always stuck with me: "Christians are like teabags; you find out what's inside them when you put them in hot water."

That's as accurately and succinctly put as I could imagine that idea being portrayed -- and my friend was dead-on. This same friend told me almost a year ago, when Adessa was first taken away and things started to get really ugly: "You're going to find out who your friends really are."

That's the thing about trials -- until we go through them, we really don't know the character of those around us. Hey, we don't even know our own character. We assume certain things about ourselves -- and, usually, we assume ourselves to be better than we really are because we want to believe it to be true. We assume things about our friends, too -- again, usually believing them to possess better qualities than perhaps they do in reality (which I think is OK, since true love "does not take into account a wrong suffered... bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things").

But suffering has a way of bringing harsh reality into sharp focus and what we observe is often ugly and disappointing.

An example: about six years ago, my cousin went through the most difficult trial of his life when his marriage ended. I love my cousin -- he's a good man. It hurt me to hear of what he went through and I hated the thought of him suffering.

So how did I reach out, what did I say, what did I do to minister to my own cousin, whom I supposedly cared for, during his deepest time of need?

Nothing.

I said nothing, did nothing. I didn't call, didn't email, didn't text. Just... nothing. Being real, I didn't even pray much for him.

Why? The usual excuses: "I don't know what to say... don't want to say the wrong thing... don't want to open a fresh wound... don't really know what's going on... maybe I'll just make things worse..." etc, etc. But the truth is much simpler than that:

I was a coward.

I was afraid of being put in an awkward spot, of being put in a position where I might not be able to "fix" things, of having to just being quiet for once and be willing to listen without judging. Besides, I had my own problems to deal with -- don't we all? -- and the distractions of life soon ensured that my cousin's trials were far from my thoughts.

So I took the easy way out: doing nothing at all. Problem is, by the biblical definition of a friend, I didn't measure up at all. "A friend loves at all times" -- and here's the key part -- "and a brother is born for adversity."

I was neither a friend nor a brother to my cousin. I was wrong and I'm ashamed of how I failed him then. I apologized to him years ago for it and it is testament to his character that when the difficult times in my life began in April 2009 he immediately reached out and ministered to me in profound ways. He was uniquely able to do so because he had already walked that same painful path.

I'm so glad to see how God has restored so much to him over the last several years. He's now very happily remarried and he and his wife had their first child in December last year. And I'm grateful for my cousin's true friendship -- he has been a friend at all times to me, especially through adversity.

Hard times are the true test of friendship; everyone wants to be around during the good times, but when the storm comes, take a look and see who has stuck around -- those are your true friends. This is the test for our own lives as well: how do we react to those who are suffering? Do we reach out in compassion? Or do we do... nothing?