There’s a lesson my freshmen year roommate in college taught me that has stuck with me through the years: always validate feelings.
Without understanding what this means, it can be an offensive phrase.
Feelings play a weird role in our culture, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum. It’s always the other side whom we accuse of playing to their emotions. They are the snowflakes. They are crybabies. Our rhetoric portrays how little we often respect feelings.
So to “always validate feelings” seems a terrible idea. After all, feelings are wrong. Feelings are fleeting. Feelings almost by definition abandon all logic and reasoning—right?
But to “always validate feelings” doesn’t mean we have to agree with the feelings. We can be upset about certain approaches. We can wholeheartedly be against someone else’s emotional reaction. But the point of validating feelings is to recognize that it is okay to feel feelings. Statements like “grow up” or “stop crying” or “stop feeling/acting like that” only hurt the situation. When people have powerful emotions—whether warranted or not, it doesn’t matter—the best way to help is to first let them feel.
The logic can come later. Let people feel. Recognize that feeling is good, it is natural, and it is normal. We could go a lot of directions with this advice, but for the purposes of this article, I want to deal with a specific and timely topic: dealing with feelings of being frustrated with a system. How do we relate to frustrated people? I believe the answer lies in lamenting and solidarity—we take on the frustration ourselves.
Addressing the Root
I heard in a marriage seminar once the concept of anger as a “secondary emotion.” In other words, anger is always caused by other “root emotions.” Anger may come from a concern for safety or preservation or may derive from your feeling that your self-worth is under attack. Counseling 101 always says “address the root problem,” and don’t focus on the reactions of the emotions. It might feel easier to “fix” the behavior, but that’s like slapping a bandaid on someone’s brain cancer and claiming the problem is fixed.
I get it, there are times when we need to just fix—and justly call out—bad behavior. There might be times when a quick solution is called for. Also, I recognize that the New Testament is incredibly concerned not with what you feel or think but how you behave. Scholar David DeSilva does a great job illustrating this in his short, readable book Transformation: The Heart of Paul’s Gospel. I’m not against the promotion of good behavior, because I think this matters a great deal to God.
However, there are case when we need to set aside behavior and go a little deeper. Repeated bad behavior calls for more questions on the origin of this activity. National outcries and the actions of protestors demand we look at what is triggering the behaviors. When we get protests over and over again then it’s time to tame a look at WHY this is happening and what is motivating vast groups of people to mobilize. We might not like their actions, we might not even like their reasons for marching, but as humans with hearts (it is not just a recommendation for Christian’s only) we should go deeper before formulating opinions.
Of course, the reason that addressing the root is not popular is that it takes time. It demands you stop, close your mouth, and listen. But most of all it very ironically demands you not let your emotions get the best of you as you stop and patiently examine the emotions of others.
But addressing the root of the matter in situations that require it (which is probably more situations than you think) is the most loving because it lives out the traits of love in 1 Corinthians 13—it is patient, kind, not arrogant, not rude, it does not insist on its own way. And yes, love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.” Certainly. But love bears all things. It bears the hurts and emotions and because of its commitment to patience, kindness, and selflessness, love prompts us to lament.
Let Us Lament
To employ Biblical language in our response to tough emotions and deep frustrations we can’t relate to, we are sometimes called to lament. Lament is just a term to refer to our great grief and sorrow or even regret over a situation. Lament can come from our own sin or can be a response to society.
Lament connects us. Mark Vroegop writes, “Simply stated, lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust.” Specifically, he means to trust in God. Over a third of the Psalms could be categorized as a lament and of course, there is the book of Lamentations. Many of these lamentations lead to trust in God, certainly. Many, however, end on an unfinished note, like a record scratch before the song really finishes. But our relationship grows with God as we confess upward to the Lord what weighs on our hearts.
Yet lament can also be a communal activity, an act of solidarity. The Bible, admittedly, doesn’t use the term in this way. But hear me that it is implicit in the Old and New Testaments. Job’s friends are good Biblical figures to play with to see how solidarity should work and should not work.
When something is wrong, and for Job that includes literally everything, the text says:
Now when Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.
Job 2:11-13, NRSV
So we got some great friends. They are consoling him in his emotional trauma, weeping aloud—probably lamenting—at his state. Their lives are perfectly fine but they are acting with sympathy for their friend’s terrible state. They mourn in the traditional way of that time. Since their friend is in pain, they don’t judge his feelings or actions, but they feel those feelings alongside him. So far, let’s give them 10/10.
Yet they ruin everything when they start to speak. They theorize about the suffering and offer solutions that the reader who knows the “behind the scenes” realizes are terrible ideas. No, Job doesn’t have a secret sin! The Theology of Work Commentary on this passage observes, “Regrettably, Job’s friends are not able to endure the mystery of his suffering, so they jump to conclusions about its source.” The commentary goes on to point out, “Job’s friends can’t lament with Job or even acknowledge that they lack a basis for judging him. They are hell-bent (literally, given Satan’s role) on defending God by placing the blame on Job.” This is a great reminder—and I admit fault in myself because I’m a textbook wanna-fix-it kind of guy—that sometimes speaking up and explaining someone else’s suffering to the sufferer is a terrible idea! Often times we make issues of suffering partisan and take up the defense of one side as if the problem is simply so black and white. Job’s friend should have lamented together.
Seeking Solidarity for the Wronged
What does this practice, this idea of lamenting with one another look like?
We see the Bible describe this practice. “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2, NRSV). And also “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.” (2 Cor. 1:3-4, NRSV). The various calls to encouragement can also include a form of lament together, as we can encourage souls by recognizing the legitimacy of their pain.
We are called to more than an “It’s okay buddy.” The former Pope, John Paul II, said that solidarity “is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.”
He’s right. Our Christian duty to the world means we should seek to better other’s lives. And this has to do with justice work. When our brothers and sisters—as in fellow humans, of all creeds—are crying out that justice must be done, it’s time to enact justice. Focusing on how they are expressing their feelings “in the wrong way” misses the point about the underlying frustration. Constantly criticizing the how of frustration, of injustice, falsely elevates the how and ignores the why.
The Lord is asking for us to fight for justice. As Christians, we have to side with the oppressed. That’s what Jesus did constantly during his earthly ministry. In Lamentations 3:34-36, a fitting verse because it is a lament, the inspired author reminds: “To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth, to deny a man justice in the presence of the Most High, to subvert a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does not approve” (ESV). Or to put the command more directly, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (ESV). That commitment never changed; in fact, with Jesus the responsibility for the world grew even more!
The Conclusion for Now
There will always be this temptation to say “Yes, but..” or to criticize a certain approach. But if a people say they are oppressed and they are crying out in frustration against a system. then for goodness’ sake (a phrase I mean literally), please validate the emotions. Lament with them. Show solidarity. If you claim the actions hurt their message, well, the only way that happens is if you refuse to hear the message. You have a choice to let the how drown out the why.
A Christian who laments with those that suffer and honors a God who seeks justice must legitimize those feelings of frustration at the system. And when injustice exists, Christians should be on the frontlines ridding the world of that injustice. Lamenting another’s pain, like Job’s friends, did at first, should lead not to us “explaining” to the other why they are wrong (at the very least listen and gather the facts first) should lead toward justice.
