Let's put the Coffee Aside...

Someone decides to pour out their heart to you, dumping all that goes on in their thoughts onto your shoulders. They ramble about how depressed they are and how they just wish they could disappear. You hear every word they say, maybe some of it escapes your thoughts, but you retain most of what they explained to you. They close their speech with broken tears and rub their eyes. You chuckle and stand up. Your hand touches their shoulder as they look up to your grinning face. “Hey,” you say, “don’t worry about it. We all feel like this sometimes. All you have to do is forget about it and move on.” Then you walk away and get in your car. Maybe you decide to grab some Starbucks on the way home.

You don’t realize what you left behind you. When you stepped into your car, that same person continued their cries, much louder than they were before. People walking near the building gawk at the person and then casually walk away as nothing happened.

Fact is, that person’s heart had been shattered. It was already broken while they were speaking to you, but it fell into millions of pieces when you said those three sentences. They feel like an idiot, so stupid that they thought they could put their trust in you. They feel used. And all the while you’re drinking your Starbucks, this person is crying out in agony for someone to mend their soul.

Okay, now I bet you’re wondering what that story has anything to do with listening. Think about it. Someone pours out their hearts you. You hear what they say and say something in response, but that particular response only injures them further. While you were sitting in front of them, thinking to yourself “I really need some coffee”, they were breaking up inside. They trusted you with the thoughts of their heart and spilled their guts in front of you. And you said “Don’t worry about it, okay? Shoot, it’s 3 o’clock. I need to go get some coffee…” Again, I’m telling you to think about it. You did nothing wrong, right? You gave them a word of encouragement to try to cheer them up. You listened to their ramble. So you did nothing wrong. Heh, a word of encouragement is not wrong. The last sentence of what you said was. “All you have to do is forget…” how many times do we say that to ourselves? Probably many. But fact is, forgetting isn’t going to help it. It’s putting a band-aid on a gushing wound.

In order to help someone when they are consoling you, you have to make a choice to listen to their hearts and not their words. Listen to their emotion. That person cracked down in tears at the very end of their explanation. Something pained their hearts. And all the while you chose to think that you really needed to get home or that you needed coffee.

A person is far more valuable than your coffee. Put yourself in that person’s place. They made a choice to talk to the likes of you because they thought you would listen. You both had to make a choice, and the choice is the most difficult part of a conversation. Choosing to ignore them and saying “forget it” isn’t going to help someone who could be mortally wounded. Be a doctor for your friends. They need your comfort, so make the choice to listen to them when they need you. There’s even people out there who aren’t exactly your friends, but some of them are going to open up to you. You are the key to helping someone else survive. And give them a hug too! Let them know that they are loved, that you will always be there for them to tell them that they’re not alone. Put aside your coffee. Put aside even your work, if the situation requires it, to speak out to your friend and find out what they’re going through.

Now choosing plays a major factor in a lot of things, but this section is only for listening. Will you not only start listening, but will you start choosing to listen to their hearts?