THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPLAINING

I worry about people who never complain.

It's certainly not a compliment that anyone will ever pin on me!  I have a chronic illness that is both debilitating and extremely painful.  And I’m more than willing to give my husband the gruesome details of any given day.  In fact, I once thanked him for listening to me while I complained.

“You don’t complain,” he responded.

I was surprised.  “I often tell you how I’m feeling,” I pointed out, “And it’s usually not good.”

“But you never blame me,” he explained, “You don’t make me feel that it’s my fault.”

This got me to thinking.  In the English language, we seem to use the same words to describe two very different kinds of communication.  We call them both “complaining”.

One kind is simply the honest disclosure of a painful reality.  It takes some courage and some humility to open up and share the truth about a private struggle.  But this kind of honesty can be very positive.  Just talking to a compassionate listener can make a burden seem lighter.

The other kind expresses a relentlessly negative approach to life; in fact, it can sound like a broken record.  The wrong kind of complaining is often done by people who see themselves as helpless—as victims in need of constant rescue.  They may even try to dump their problem onto the listener.

The scriptures give many examples of both of these kinds of complaining.  In the Old Testament, when the children of Israel were suffering in slavery, we read that:

“. . . . the children of Israel sighed by reason of  the bondage 
 and they  cried, and their cry came up unto God . . . . 
And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant 
with  Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.”

                                                                       (Exodus 2:23-24)

Apparently, this kind of complaining does not offend God.  He listened and He sent help—He called Moses to be their deliverer.  He told Moses to tell the children of Israel:

“ . . . I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt . . .

 unto a land flowing with milk and honey.”

                                                                       (Exodus 3:17)

But Israel has a hard time being grateful for that deliverance.  When it looks like Pharaoh and his armies will trap them on the banks of the Red Sea, they do not remember the miracles of plague and Passover that liberated them.  Instead, they start to complain: "

"Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken 
 us away to die in the wilderness?  Wherefore hast thou dealt
 thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? . . . . For it had 
 been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should
 die in the wilderness.”

                                                                        (Exodus 14:11-12)

Moses is patient with them.  He assures them they need not fear, that the Lord will fight this battle for them.  And when his words are fulfilled, when they cross the Red Sea on dry land while the Egyptians are drowned in its depths, Israel sings songs of rejoicing for their deliverance.  Until the next problem arises.

What are they going to drink? Miraculous water.  Pouring out of a rock.

But what are they going to eat?  Manna.  From heaven.

But water isn’t wine and manna gets a little boring after a while.  Back in Egypt they had fish and cucumbers and melons and garlic.  In other words, no miracle or blessing or gift will ever be good enough.  They will always find a reason to complain.

Israel began with the right kind of complaining (an honest cry about their desperate misery) but ended up indulging in the wrong kind of complaining (relentless negativity, joined with a stubborn determination to play the victim.)

How would it have been if someone had gone up to Moses and said, “Hey, Moses—I am really grateful for this manna, but I do have a question.  Would it be all right if we slaughtered just a few sheep, chopped up the meat into tiny little pieces, dried it and made ‘mutton bits’ to sprinkle on the manna?  That would sure taste good!”

I think Moses would have been delighted.  That’s not chronic negativity or false helplessness.  That’s taking a clear look at a hard situation and suggesting a solution.  At times, someone who is accused of “complaining” is actually just asking for some help with a little problem-solving.

But sometimes there are no solutions.

Job was in that situation.  He was enduring unimaginable suffering and unbelievable loss and no one but God had the power to end it.  Job spoke quite honestly about his circumstances:

“My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin 
 is broken and become loathsome.  My days are swifter than 
 a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope. . . . Therefore 
 I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of 
 My spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.”

                                                                          (Job 7:5-6, 11 )

But his friends didn’t want to hear about it.

The truth is this sort of situation is also a severe test for the friends who surround the sufferer.  It is hard to endure with someone—to continue to offer support and refuse to pass judgment while the dreadful trial goes on and on and on.  And yet, compassionate listening is one of the greatest gifts we can offer each other.

Recently, I had a chance to spend time with a dear friend.  “How are you?”

I asked and I really meant it.  I knew her life was hard and I had been worrying about her.  She spent half an hour telling me about the burdens she was carrying.  At one point I mentioned a similar situation I had faced and a solution that had worked for me, but mostly I just listened.  At the end of our time together, she seemed happier.  She said she would give my idea a try, but mostly I think she felt better because she had unburdened a little.

The scriptures command us to bear one another’s burdens “that they may be light . . .”  (Mosiah 18:8).  Sometimes we forget about the last part of that commandment.  She unburdened her problems, but I was not burdened by them.  That was because she was doing the right kind of complaining—she did not portray herself as a chronic victim and her attitude was not always negative.  In fact, she lived her life with great courage and faith.  But sharing a burden with a trusted friend can help to relieve the stress of carrying it.  It can help us remember that we are not alone.

For many years, I was a terrible listener.  If someone told me about their problems, I thought it was my job to solve them.  Whether I succeeded or failed in the attempt, I resented the burden I had shouldered.  And so, like Job’s comforters, I failed in the most important task:  to offer love and withhold judgment.

There’s a great book on this topic:  I Don’t Have to Make Everything All Better by Gary and Joy Lundberg.  It explaines how to provide encouragement to struggling people without becoming overwhelmed and exhausted.  It also explains how to handle the wrong kind of complainers—how to gently empower them to solve their own problems.

Years ago, I knew a woman who was raising several small children while her husband served in long military assignments overseas.  As she entered church one day, someone asked her how she was doing.  My friend told the truth—her life was very challenging.

“You sure complain a lot,” was the response.  My friend was crushed and silenced.  For more than a decade, until she moved from that ward, she never again shared any of her problems.

So that’s why I worry when I hear someone praised because “she never complained”.  I worry that she never had a good friend who was willing to listen to her.  I worry that she was accused of “holding a pity party” and learned to be silent.  I worry that she was scolded or shamed for simply telling the truth about her life.

We cannot bear one another’s burdens if we don’t even know what they are.

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                                                Author’s note: 

I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Some of the vocabulary that I use has a unique meaning in my church’s culture.  So I have provided a few definitions below.

bishop:  lay leader for a local congregation

LDS:  short for “Latter-day Saint”

Mormon, Latter-day Saint, saint:  these are common names for a member of my church

Sacrament Meeting: main worship service in my church

ward:  term for a local congregation in my church