Misery needs company

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. (Ecclesiastes 4:9, 10 KJV)

One of the worst experiences associated with heartache is the sense of isolation it produces. We feel lost in our pain and alienated from the world around us. To survive it, we need the comfort of others who empathize with our struggle and who can help us get back on our feet and live again. 

A Chinese fable tells of a woman who’d suffered a great loss and day by day was succumbing to her grief. Desperate for help, she visited a wise man in the village. For his magic to work, he said, she was to collect one mustard seed from a family who had never felt the sting of deep sorrow. The woman immediately went throughout the village, from door to door, seeking the magic seed that would heal her pain. But, to her surprise, she found no one that hadn’t struggled. What she discovered along the way, however, was a community of people who understood the suffering she’d endured. And as she shared her pain with each one, and they with her, she felt comforted in the midst of her heartache and was lifted to new strength. 

It was then she realized what the wise man had always known. There was no magic seed. Her search had simply revealed a community of people who struggled just like her. 
The journey of healing begins with that small step. God has designed us to live and thrive, not on an island of isolation, but in community. That’s why discovering we’re not alone in our suffering is itself a source of comfort. It rescues us from our alienation and connects us to the world around us, as well as to the Lord Himself.