Book Review: Just Show up, the dance of walking through suffering together.

<- Back

---

Just Show up, the dance of walking through suffering together

By Kate Tippetts and Jill Lynn Buteyn

2015/190 pages

 

I was recently given a book to read titled Just Show Up by Kate Tippetts and Jill Lynn Buteyn. Kate,

mother of four and wife to a pastor, was battling cancer when she and her friend, Jill, decided to

write a book about showing up for one another amidst suffering. They write about “what friendship

looks like in the midst of changing life seasons, loads of laundry and cancer”. Each of the nine

chapters are written by Jill, followed by a short section that Kara wrote, and concludes with a few

discussion questions.  

 

As I read this book (190 pages), I came to appreciate the practical suggestions given for how to

support someone who is suffering from cancer or otherwise. I valued the honesty of the authors in

acknowledging how, in this “dance of walking together through suffering” we will mess up and need

to extend grace to one another for saying the wrong thing. This will happen from both sides, but

being able to forgive and move on is healthy and possible as we imitate Christ.

 

One helpful principle Jill writes about is “comfort in, dump out”. The idea goes like this: as a friend or

relative, you bring words of comfort to those who are relationally closer to the person who is

suffering than you are, and you “dump out” to those who are further out than you. The book uses an

illustration of concentric circles to clarify this point. The person suffering is in the middle of the

circle. The person closest to them is in the next circle. Then close friends, and so on.  For example: Jill

doesn’t pour out her heartache and sorrow about seeing her friend suffer to Kara herself, or to

Kara’s husband - because he is closer to Kara than she is. Instead, she is conscious to only pouring

“comfort in”. But Jill can express her own sorrow and pain to her own mother, because she is further

removed from Kara. This is something we may do instinctively, but in the hard moments we can

easily be tempted to focus on ourselves and “dump in”.

 

Jill also writes about learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Seeing a friend suffer and

wanting to say just the right thing can paralyse us into doing nothing and staying away. Jill has seen

how much better it is to just show up, putting aside her own desire to be comfortable. She admits

she won’t get it right every time, but there is grace for that. She is learning the value of listening and

being present vs wanting to say just the right thing to take away what is hard.

 

However, this book is more than a practical guide on ways to “just show up”. It also brings out the

theology of the authors.

 

I found the way Jill speaks of the work of the Holy Spirit to be vague and misleading, in a slippery

sort of way. Phrases like “Heather felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit to show up for her” (pg 109)

and “ask God to bring that person’s name or face to your thoughts, and trust your thoughts when

they come” (pg 31). These phrases sound spiritual, but they are misleading. Consider for a moment:

What does this prompting Heather experienced, feel like? Did Heather perhaps read that morning of

the call to love her neighbour as herself? Or was her conscience pricked when she realised she has

been living for herself lately and ignoring the needs of those around her? Or did she flip open her

Bible and read the name of her afflicted friend in the passage in front of her? This pious way of

speaking is too vague to be helpful. Do you speak this way? What do you mean when you do? Do

you see how it could be misleading to others? When I read that Heather was feeling prompted by

the Holy Spirit, I was tempted to ask myself, “Hmm, I haven’t felt any promptings from the Holy

Spirit. Why not? What’s wrong with me? And if one day I would feel something, how would I be sure

it was the Holy Spirit?” Similarly, how far can I “trust my thoughts” if I’ve asked God to give me a

certain thought? Do I claim it to be an infallible revelation? These phrases take us away from living in

freedom before the face of God, joyfully doing His will as we find it in His Word. While thinking

about this, I picked up Kevin DeYoung’s book, “Just Do Something; A Liberating Approach to Finding

God’s Will” and found it to be a must-read for anyone who has ever been confronted with this way

of thinking and speaking of God’s will.

 

Besides the above concerns, I also didn’t appreciate Jill’s trite way of speaking about heaven (pg

177). The focus was very much on being reunited with friends, with no mention of the joy of being in

our Saviour’s presence. For these reasons, I can’t see myself encouraging a friend to pick up this book

or ever taking the time to reread it. What I did value was the practical suggestions and principles

outlined in the book and being motivated to read a fantastic book about understanding God’s will

for our lives…but more on that another time.

 

Renae Witten, Baldivis