A Word of Correction
Posted: Thursday, November 13, 2008
by Jean Purcell
OpineBooks.com
A faithful friend is the medicine of life.
The Apocrypha, 6:16
As most readers of my articles know, my husband and I lived in Switzerland for 10 years. I've written of my longing in those years for children and grandchildren far away, and my mother, who by then had Parkinson's disease.
The first couple of years in Geneva, loneliness and some adjustment anxieties threatened to drag me into depression. I fought them almost daily, and prayed a lot.
One Sunday there, an American, Sally, asked me: "Would you like to come to my place for coffee sometime?"
I leaped at the chance, and went to her apartment across Lake Geneva the next week. That day, she asked if I would like to be her prayer partner. I jumped at that opportunity, too.
We began to meet every week, and I told Sally of people back home, and about my mother's illness. Sally had lived in Geneva for 19 years. She had good advice to give, and God provided good times of prayer and sharing every week. We also went to flea markets and visited other people, and I began to feel a bit more at home far from home.
Sally invited me to join her Bible Study group, and eventually I did. However, during that time I started not going to church on Sundays. A dread would overtake me, starting on Saturday evenings. I would not want to interact with a lot of people. My husband's job took us out a few nights a week with large gatherings of new faces, and at times it seemed overwhelming. One day, Sally called and asked if she could come by for a visit the next day. When she arrived we had coffee and chatted for a while. Then she looked at me very directly from across the kitchen table.
"There's something I'd like to talk with you about." She paused, her tone serious, and her gaze still direct.
"OK," I responded.
"You haven't been in church often in the last few months," she said.
"I know. I just do not feel like going," I tried to explain.
"But do you realize how it is affecting?" and she said my husband's name. "When you do not come, he rarely comes. And Sunday morning is his only time to be with other Christians and to be encouraged by that fellowship."
Maybe she could see that my feelings felt the sting of her words. Yet, her words were truthful and correct. I mentioned that he was free to go, that I encouraged him to go on his own.
"He loves you," Sally continued. "He probably does not like to leave you, since he is at work or traveling so much Could you try to come to church regularly, for him, even if you don't always feel like it?"
After Sally left I felt angry with her. After all, she had one child in England and one in Geneva, although two others were in the States. She couldn't know how I was feeling.
Then I remembered the cautious expression on her face and thought of the months when she had been silent about her concerns. The thought came into my mind strongly: "She has been praying about this. She did not rush into this conversation easily. She really cares."
Knowing Sally as I had come to know her, a practical and true friend, I knewof course she had prayed about it and searched for a way to help. Then, she had come. For my retreat from Sunday church, she had a cure that, if taken, would do much good for me and would help strengthen my husband for the tough week ahead, again and again.
Some people have no problem criticizing others, making quick judgments, and blurting out advice. Few people have the gift of a word of unselfish correction given in just the right way and at the best time, as Sally had. It is hard to explain or describe the strengthening that can come from Christian fellowship, when it is real. In the Geneva church, a place of many people far from home, I came to see others in the same situation and to appreciate that God was working in us, inwardly.
From that time on, my husband and I were in church on Sunday morning, when in town, and kept a habit of finding English-speaking churches when we were in other parts of the world on Sundays, when possible. It helped a lot, eventually, and I think that is what Sally had expected would happen. We remained prayer partners and buddies for several years. When she left to return to the States, I had made a big turn-around into more involvement and reaching out where I was.
Sally and her husband settled along the eastern U. S. coast. When I would call, I became aware that her husband always answered, and I could hear him saying my name and "Geneva" before she took the phone. She always kept the conversation polite and warm, but brief. I wondered if she might be ill.
A couple of years later my husband and I moved back to Maryland, and before long Sally's husband died suddenly, and I learned that she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
On a visit to Geneva the next year, I got a call from a friend of Sally's and mine. "Can you come over? Sally's in town too and is with me today," she said. Sally needed someone to be with her while her daughter shopped.
When I got there, I was prepared that my dear friend probably would not know me. There she was, looking up from a sofa with the same familiar, ready friendliness.
After I gave her the Geneva greeting, a kiss on each cheek, she smiled and asked, "Do we know each other?"
I wanted to say, "We are close friends of many years," but that would confuse. So I said, "Yes, we met when you lived here."
"Oh," she said in that Tennessee lilting voice she had, "I'm glad."
During that afternoon, I realized that Sally had lost all connection. She would not remember her times with all of us. Yet, she was still the same person in the important ways. And, she remembered the events around the death of her husband.
She spoke of it and how a doctor had misdiagnosed his heart attack and realized it too late.
"I was very mad at the hospital for a while," she said calmly. "I had to pray about it a lot. Then, I forgave."
My memories of Sally include a lot of laughter and simple conversation, on our prayer days, at the Bibld stury, and many other times of walking around the city streets of a faraway city. That day of her word of correction to me continues to stand out in memory. I thank God that He helped her to give it and helped me to receive and respond, not getting lost in a habit of retreat from church or a stubborn reaction, due to the initial hurt feelings.
We never know how long we have to try to make such differences for others, if given the chance. Giving or receiving a word of correction at just the right time is not easy. For the one who should speak, not giving it can be a kind of harmful indulgence to suffering, when giving it can help break a cycle that may get worse, due to depression or isolation.
Having a friend who can see the differences and is willing to speak can make a lifelong change. Thanks be to God for His faithfulness through such a friend who trusted Him, too.
Source of opening quote: todancewithangels.com/famousquotes.html
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Hi Jane.In many ways, this is a lovely article. It also contains a powerful message and has given me much to think about.Thank you,DianneDear Dianne, your specific comments mean a lot to me. Thank you. It would be so like Sally to be glad to read your reactions too. May this hold more good for you too.
Sincerely,
Jane
Such a warm and caring article. I, too lead a Bible Study group in my home. It is a small group and some of these folks do not attend a church, at least they didn't. I always encouraged them to find a church home, but some had been hurt by the church in the past and others said that coming to my home was their form of going to church. I never pushed the issue, but would invite them to come to church with me when there was a special service, or the choir was singing, or there was a dinner of some kind, which there are a lot of. (I attend a Mennonite church and Mennonites love to eat.) I'm glad to say that two of my group now attend church on a rather regular basis.David, thank you so much. Praise God! Also, I have a special sense of the kindness built into the Mennonite church and food. My husband and I once went away with another couple into PA, not far from us, and on Sunday visited a Mennonite church. At the end of the service, we were invited to the home of the hosts for visitors that Sunday. We had a wonderful meal with them, including visiting the chickens afterward, which the teenagers in the family cared for proudly. It was such a special time. The grandmother of the family was not feeling well and almost did not come out of her room to join us for the meal. At the last minute she did, and we enjoyed that. The next week my friend got a note from the host family to say the grandmother went to be with the Lord early that week. We were so glad she had been with us, for she seemed to enjoy that time.I love hearing of your experiences and ideas. Over two recent articles, I have some things to think about more, based on what you have shared. Thank you so much. ~Jane
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