The Old Cliché

Cliché is the enemy of the broken and disrupted spirit.

Pardon my negativity here, but when my soul is low I have found it hard to be patient with the clichés I have heard from very well-intentioned friends or strangers.

It seems as though the ground is shaking, the pictures are falling off the walls and the hero approaches you and says...."Don't worry, it's an earthquake!"

Thank you captain obvious.

The ongoing struggle I have with clichés.....especially those of the Christian persuasion.....is that in one sense they seem so commonplace. Yet, I am convinced that what brought a statement like, "when God closes a door, He opens a window," into the realm of common knowledge was the truth inherent in its meaning.

Yeah, I know it's cheesy, but there have been times in my life when I have wanted....even needed that statement to be true for my own sanity.

So you won't see me use a lot of clichés in my written thoughts. I try to avoid them at all cost.

Don't get me wrong.....I am in no way a cliché snob. I understand why people use them.

I have sat around a table when someone has just unloaded their hurt or their despair, and in my total inadequacy said, "there's a reason for everything," when I couldn't handle the silence any longer.

Instead of going to old reliable, I wish I had the strength to say something like:

"I don't know what to say to make you feel better.....maybe because there aren't actually words that would do any good.....or maybe because I don't have the courage to dig into my own painful experiences....but I have to believe that, even in this pain, God's plan is at work. Hopefully one day, you will look back on today and see a reason for what is happening. Until then, I'll walk through this with you."