When I saw my friend, she suddenly collapsed in my arms with that wail and cry we hear when someone has hit bottom. For years, she had borne hidden sorrows and buried them while she cared for her family. Finally, they grew too heavy and exploded.
She needed to be caught and loved.
She needed to know someone knew — and understood.
She needed to know she was not alone.
We never know the hidden sorrows others hide behind their smiles. If plagues come in tens, then it seems as though those I love have been slaughtered with plagues tenfold. That's at least 100 or 1,000 hidden sorrows.
The bad times come in many forms, and sometimes in multiple ways to the same people — finances, health, family division, employment, and instability.
They are hit with those horrors that haunt us and wake us, screaming at 3AM in the dark of early morning.
One thing about those sorrows: I know about the ones my closest friends face and assume the rest of the world glides across smooth waters. Those “other” people, with the smiles on their faces, can have no idea how hard the rest of us have it.
They don't know what it's like to feel like they are the sail of a ship, trying to keep from being shredded during a category-5 hurricane. They don't hear the roar of the wind and feel its forces slamming them in all directions at the same time. They have no clue what it's like to be scared that the rain keeps coming and the water is rising.
Psalm 73 describes some: “But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant…. For they have no pangs; their bodies are sound and sleek. They are not in trouble as other men are; they are not stricken like other men.”
They don't know what it's like to sometimes feel like Fred Sanford from that old TV show. Instead of grabbing my chest and yelling, “It's the big one,”
thinking it's a heart attack, I find myself under spiritual attack, yelling, “God, this is the Big One. They may finally find the straightjacket. This was that one thing too many that I can't handle, and I'm finally gonna blow. Or collapse into tears and melt into Jello!”
The thing is — lots of those happy people I think have no clue really do.
They, too, have hidden sorrows behind their smiles. The next time you walk into a crowded room full of smiling faces and wonder how they manage, remember there are others with hidden sorrows behind their smiles. They may be hanging on to that ledge by their fingernails, hoping to somehow manage the unbearable hurt and still keep their families and homes going.
The world is full of lost sheep and hurting people. We can take heart.
There is always a Gentle Shepherd ready and waiting to catch us before we stumble off the cliff. All we need to do is ask.
We are not alone.
“Yet I am always with You; You hold me by my right hand. You guide me with Your counsel, and afterward You will take me into glory” (Ps. 73:23-24).
Mary Biever is a homeschooling mother of two who publishes encouragement articles and runs Encouragement Workshops for Today's Families.
This article was adapted from one of her columns.
