CLEVELAND, Ohio – I received this email from Ed:
“I’ve had both knees replaced with some complications. I’ve also had four eye surgeries, foot neuropathy, a fractured back, and neck pain. Yet no matter how bad I felt whenever I went to MetroHealth, I would always see someone worse off than me..I just saw a guy in the hall with one arm.
“I told a car salesman I delayed getting a car because of my knees. I was buying a Sonata because of all the blind spot protection. I can only see out of one eye. Turns out he’s had a stroke that sometimes causes vision problems and a growth on his heart where they had to cut him open.
“Once again someone always worse!!! I’m 64 and he was younger!”
Maybe there isn’t much comfort in looking around and seeing someone dealing with a bigger problem than we face...
But Ed is right.
There always is someone worse.
I called my friend Gary Rosen, an Akron attorney. I half-jokingly call him my “personal rabbi.” At times, he does pinch hit and give a message (called a D’Var Torah) at his synagogue when the rabbi is out of town.
I read him Ed’s letter. He laughed and talked about his recent health history: a pair of back surgeries, a heart stent and a strange pancreatic problem for the last six years.
But wait...someone is worse!
His wife Toby has had three spinal fusions, a knee replacement, thyroid surgery and is looking at surgery for her arm and wrist to deal with nerve damage.
“I don’t feel so bad when I think about what she is dealing with,” he said.
WATCH FOR COMPLAINT SESSIONS
When I was growing up in my mostly Slovak family, I remember the “old people” sitting around and talking about their aches and pains.
It became a contest of who was dealing with the worst situation.
Once, I remember someone saying, “You think all of that is bad...I haven’t even told you about my bowels!”
“Please don’t,” someone said.
“Amen to that,” I thought as I left the room.
Misery does more than love company. It’s a heart sinker, a soul destroyer.
When we hear someone recite their own book of lamentations and then try to match it with a 15-volume treatise of our own tale of woe, we miss the point.
The fact we can talk about it at all means there is someone worse...
Such as my father, who lost the ability to speak for the last five years of his life after his stroke.
Leslie Parker-Barnes: "Everyone has something big going on." Photo from Arlington Church of God.
BE CAREFUL WITH ‘SOMEONE WORSE OFF’
“Someone is worse” is good for our internal dialogue. Those conversations we have in our heads. That’s especially true when we’re ready to hold a pity party where we’re the honored guest.
But when someone is telling us of a dental problem they are facing, we shouldn’t say, “That’s nothing! I know a guy who swallowed his own false teeth and has had stomach aches ever since. I don’t even want to think about it!”
Playing the “someone has a bigger problem” card early in the conversation is a way of cutting them off – and making them feel unimportant. If it’s a long diatribe, then adding some context of what others deal with can be helpful.
Music Minister Leslie Parker Barnes of the Arlington Church of God often tells her choir, “Everyone has something big going on.”
Her point is we are there to pray with them and help them if possible.
I like this from Pastor Rick Warren: “You can’t talk people out of their pain. Some pain is beyond words. When it’s the right time, your hurting friend will say something. When it’s the right time, then you’ll be able to say something, too.”
A way to find light through the clouds and looming darkness is through the lens of a grateful heart. Photo by Terry Pluto, cleveland.com
WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
It’s wise to look around, as Ed did. He saw people at the hospital, at the car dealership, different places. People seemingly worse off. He encouraged them and gave thanks in his mind for his own situation.
Psalm 9:1 says: “I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart. I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.”
I like that verse because it goes to one of the things I pray for: a grateful heart. When I was a whiny kid, my mother sometimes told me, “Count your blessings.”
As a child, that’s hard. We want something and we want it now. We tend to focus on what we don’t have. We assume everyone has the same things we do – and more. We lack the capacity to look at the world around us.
But as we age, we should be smarter than that. Stepping into someone else’s hurt and discouragement can be a way to lift up both of us – the person and ourselves.
The truth is, many people are worse off than us – if we can get off ourselves and realize it.
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November 13, 2021 at 05:28PM
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Am I stuck on the negative? Hey, it could be worse! Really! – Terry Pluto’s Faith & You - cleveland.com
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