Platitudes – Proverbs 25:20

Mina Holland writes of the strain of her newborn’s diagnosis with Diamond Blackfan Anemia, a bone marrow failure that led to inability to produce sufficient red blood cells:

What do you say to someone for whom the unimaginable has happened, though? I wouldn’t have known, either. “I can’t even imagine”, “I’m so sorry”: these platitudes exist for a reason – there is truth in them, if not real empathy – but it is alienating to be told that we have to adjust to “the new normal”, or that Vida’s condition “is all she will ever know”. We need hope, but not trite reminders of our difference. Vida’s condition is written into every cell in her body, as inextricable from her as her loud voice. We have to celebrate what she is, not what she isn’t. “Full of life, but not haemoglobin,” as my husband puts it.

Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, and like vinegar on soda. (Proverbs 25:20, ESV)

When I was 16 I was playing with my brother on our trampoline after school and in the middle of an aborted flip I broke my arm.  I ended up having surgery on it and one of the elders from my church came to the hospital to see me.  I remember telling him, as a new Christian, that I realized that all things work together for good, even a broken arm, because Jesus was in my life.

What did not happen in that situation was that this elder told me, in my pain, that all things work together for good.  That would have been a totally different situation.  When we are hurting and our hearts are “heavy” and someone seeks to sing a song to us to cheer us up, or, as we are most used to doing, try to quote us a verse of Scripture intended to take away our pain, it is like someone taking our coat away when we’re freezing, or like pouring vinegar on soda (see video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSS8-Rvq804).  It causes a negative reaction.

So why do we do this to people?  One, we love them and don’t want them to hurt, and we think this is a quick way to salve their pain.  Two, we are scared of the hurting (and probably scared of hurting ourselves) and want a quick end to it.  But when people are hurting they don’t need a platitude (a flat, dull, or trite remark, especially one uttered as if it were fresh or profound, Dictionary.com).  They just need to know that you are there and you love them, like Job’s friends were before they ruined it with their attempts to fix him.

Let’s don’t be vinegar on soda.