“One person’s medicine can be another person’s poison, and something can be a medicine to the same person at one time and a poison at another.” 

- St John Climacus, Thirty Steps to Heaven, pg 201. 

Reflection: 

While this applies to spiritual guidance (the amount of prescribed prayer and fasting), it also applies to when and how we help one another.(1)

There is no ‘one size fits all’ in terms of how to be present for another person.  Each person is unique and their needs are different. The advice that helped a person one time may not help them a second time. 

The best gift we can give someone is the gift of our time, our presence, our focus and attention, our listening ear. Then we are showing them their extremely high value as a child of God.

Let us pray to Christ to enlighten us each time we find ourselves in the position to help someone, so that we do what is truly best and act according to God’s will, not our own, in their lives.

Resources:

1) John 13:34-35 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”