Mind Sets

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. -Henri Nouwen

After a long discussion with someone I dearly love and would gladly take a bullet for, I was reminded of several truths about relationships and the human mind.

1. The mind is a terrible thing to play games with.
2. Physical injuries heal in days, mental ones take lifetimes and even then, there is no guarantee of healing.
3. A wounded mind = a fragile life.
4. Holding the wounded in your arms while they get through a crises probably does more to sooth the holder than the holdee.
5. There is a helplessness that consumes you when you desperately want to protect/heal/deliver the person who is crying out for release of inner torments.
6. My hurts cannot begin to compare to the hurt I feel from watching a child in anguish.
7. Laying in the dark trying to find the way to help the one you love is a lonely vigil.

I also know Henri Nouwen is right but have to admit this part of the phrase saddens and frustrates me...

"...who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares"

I know it is because I want to fix it and make it better that there is such frustration and a sense of helplessness, but just because I know that to be true doesn't make it any easier.