John the Baptist said that the friend of the bridegroom rejoices for his friend. My question is, how does the friend know the right words to say? I seem to be lacking in this area lately, regardless of the nature of the event.
It seems that if someone you love is going through a hard time, you should be able to say something to help them through it, right? But not me. It just feels.. wrong to offer the usual platitudes, so I'm left with, "What can I do to help?" and "I'm here for you." But is that good enough? When someone I love is hurting, I hurt too, and all the worse for not being able to protect them.
It should be easier if it's a happy event, but unfortunately - it's not. My brother-in-law announced last night that he's getting married. It's not even that he's only known the girl for 8 weeks. It's the manner in which he's going about it. (It's sort of the Lydia Bennet track, if you follow my meaning.) He found out yesterday that he was hired for his first-ever job (at Red Lobster) and immediately announces his engagement. Now for a 22-year old man who's never done anything in his life to support himself, you'd think he ought to work for a while and see if he likes it before trying to support a wife too. Financially speaking, he's really not prepared for marriage, and what's more, it seems like he just grabbed on to the first woman that came along. But I don't know her, so I can't say.
We've all fallen in that kind of love, where it flies in the face of every kind of sense. In my case, I still feel that way and I don't know if it will ever end in spite of a certain set of challenges. So I just hope they will be happy and not bankrupt.
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wakeful dreamer