relationships

Holding Each Other (When We Want to Fix It)

Holding Each Other (When we want to fix it)
Photo by Bobby Rodriguezz on Unsplash

 

When her teammate went down in the middle of a game, our daughter immediately ran to her side. Her first aid training kicked in, and she tried in vain to get her friend to slow her breathing. Shock and pain overwhelmed her teammate, though, and all our girl could do was sit by and cry for her.

Afterward, she lamented her helplessness to me. “I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t do anything for her,” she sighed.

“You did the best thing you could. You were with her. She didn’t need you to fix her. She needed you to be there.”

Unconvinced, she continued, “But it was so hard to see her in pain, and I couldn’t help.”

And there is the heart of the issue.

Our Desire to Fix

When we see others in pain, something in us desires to help. That desire is good. It’s God-given.

But often our desire to help is really a desire to fix. It’s a desire for the bad situation to simply not be true.

It seems right, even good, to fix, doesn’t it? It feels like helping. Really, though, it’s usually avoiding. We struggle to sit in places of shalom shattered, both for ourselves and others.

It reminds us that we are not in control. We feel our helplessness. We feel their pain.

Yet there’s something we can offer in these moments that is precious and valuable. We can offer our presence. And that can be enough.

Offering Our Presence

Recently I was in a small group for my spiritual formation program. We were asked to introduce ourselves to each other, and then sit in silence for two minutes afterward. One person shared quite vulnerably, even to the point of tears.

And after sharing, we sat there without saying a word to her. It felt both awful and right.

Awful, because we wanted to enter into her pain, to comfort and empathize, to say, “Yeah, I get that. Me too.”

But also right, because it meant no one spoke a word out of turn. No one offered platitudes or tried to rescue her from something God might be doing. It felt like enough to just be together, to be human with one another.

M. Craig Barnes, in his book, Yearnings, says, “We don’t mend each other’s brokenness, we just hold it tightly.”

What a relief! It’s not up to us to fix each other. While it’s hard to see someone else in pain, wrestling, confused, unsettled, whatever it is, we aren’t being asked to take it away. God has his eyes on all of us. He sees. He knows.

And so our invitation is to simply hold each other tightly. Be there. Be there right away. Cry with them. That is enough.

Related posts:

5 Reasons to Be a Burden

The Challenge to Rejoice and Weep with Others

Open the Door to Others

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5 Reason to Be a Burden

Five Reasons to Be a Burden
Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash

 

I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase before, “I just hate to be a burden” or, “she doesn’t want to be a burden.” A friend once even told me she admires people who don’t want to be a burden to others.

I don’t.

When we say we don’t want to be a burden, there’s usually lies fueling it, lies rooted in our worth.

Those lies tell us that speaking needs places our worth on the table for examination. Am I worth the time, attention, and energy of others? Will they still want me if I appear weak, needy, or foolish?

Some of us respond to the lies by diminishing ourselves. Others of us (ahem, looking in the mirror), respond by determining that we will never leave the worthiness question for others to answer.

And yet, we should let others carry us.

Here’s why:

5 Reason to Be a Burden

  1.  It dispels the lies about our worth.

    When we choose to offer our needs to others, rather than stumbling on alone, we break the power of the voices that tell us it’s not ok. We declare ourselves human and worthy of space in the world. That’s a brave and beautiful thing.

  2. We find healing.

    Not only healing but rest, strength, grace, hope, and help. We need each other-that’s how God made us. I sometimes hear people express an idea that all they really need is God. But what God gives us, He often gives through others. The help we need comes from God, through others.

  3. We give others an opportunity to use their gifts

    when we ask them to carry our burdens. Withholding our needs from others robs them. Ministering to us might be the way God wants to use them today. Who are we to deny them that?

  4. Our humility invites others.

    Sometimes it seems we’re all wounded soldiers, triaging ourselves, insisting someone else needs more attention. But when one of us cries out for help, it frees the rest of us to cry as well. The enemy wants to keep us silently wounded. But we defy him and lead others to healing if we ask for it ourselves.

  5. Bottom line? It’s Biblical.

    Galatians 6:2, “Carry each others’ burdens, for in this way you fulfill the law of Christ.” What is the law of Christ? To love God and love others. When we offer and receive the weightiness of our burdens, we love.

“In their created limitations, Adam and Eve were held together in a bond of naked vulnerability . . . that is because in God’s design we do not manage our needs, we confess them. Intimacy demands hearing and telling the truth . . . [and it] recognizes that we will be inadequate to respond to the needs that are shared. We don’t mend each other’s brokenness, we just hold it tightly.”  Craig Barnes, Yearnings

In God’s design we do not manage our needs, we confess them.

We don’t manage needs, we share them. And when we do, it’s not anyone’s responsibility to fix us; we simply ask them to hold us. It requires vulnerability and humility-both challenging, both necessary.

So be a burden, today, if you need to be. Confess your need. Let someone carry you. This is how God made us. Click To Tweet This is how we love and are loved.

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I Don’t Need Rescuing (Except I Do) 

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The Challenge to Rejoice and Weep With Others

The Challenge to Rejoice and Weep with Others
Photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash

After Hurricane Irma last fall, as I scrolled through my Facebook feed, I saw people rejoicing that their power had returned after the storm. Some never lost it in the first place.

I wanted to be happy for them, but it was hard when we were staring down day 3 without it. Days after that, we still had friends without power. I’m guessing they struggled even more than we did.

Sometimes it’s hard to rejoice with those who rejoice.

In the course of just a few weeks, we saw devastation in Texas, the Caribbean, and Florida. People lost everything. Yet as I scanned comments on articles about the aftermath, my heart broke over remarks flinging judgment at choices made to stay or go. Contempt poured over people where instead empathy was needed. Rather than entering others’ pain, people stood at a distance and thanked God it wasn’t them.

Sometimes it’s hard to weep with those who weep.

Romans 12:15 says, “rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.” Both are challenging.

I used to think it was harder to weep with others, but lately, I see the challenge in celebrating as well.

Oh, it’s easy to do if I am in an unrelated situation, or I have already found my own happiness in a similar one. But when we share the same hunger, and you are fed while I am not, how do I enter in well? How do I set aside my lack to rejoice in your plenty?

There is the couple who longs for a child, watching their friends easily conceive. Consider single friends who watch as yet another friend gets married. Think of the one who is overlooked while a co-worker is elevated. My friend’s child succeeds but mine fails. He loses weight but you don’t.

How can we truly rejoice with others?

Rejoicing with others is a choice

The simple but hard answer is: it’s a choice we make. If we refuse to rejoice with others, we not only diminish their joy, we lose ours as well. Rejoicing when it’s challenging humbles us, reminding us not to hold tightly to the things of the world. When we do that, it’s a greater sacrifice of love.

But rejoicing with others does not mean we kill our own desires. In fact, we hold them steady. That requires us to do something else: allowing ourselves to mourn what we lack.

Weeping with others begins with ourselves

Rather than minimizing, ignoring, spiritualizing, or pouring contempt on our own pain, we enter it. We cannot weep with others if we do not weep for ourselves.

Oh, I know, that sounds scary, wrong even. We’re afraid we’ll get lost in the emotion, that we’re not exhibiting faith.

But when we acknowledge our own unmet desires, God meets us in them. Then, we receive His compassion and comfort. The more we allow ourselves to weep over our own pain, the greater our capacity to weep with others in theirs.

Rejoicing or weeping: either option requires that we hold someone’s pain-our own or someone else’s. That’s why it’s so hard to do.

We must be uncomfortable in order to be connected.

But when we are connected in this way, it is powerful and life-giving. That is why we are asked to do it in scripture, and why we must strive to do it well.

What’s harder for you? To rejoice with others when you are struggling? Or to weep with others, when they’re the ones experiencing trials?

Related posts:

Open the Door to Others

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Open the Door to Others

Open the Door to Others
Photo by Philipp Berndt on Unsplash

“To open yourself to another person, to stop lying about your loneliness and your fears, to be honest about your affections, and to tell others how much they mean to you-this openness is the triumph of the child of God over the Pharisee and a sign of the dynamic presence of the Spirit.” (Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child).

We lie about our loneliness and our fears.

They are hidden beneath smiles, activity, and bravado. We ignore aches and push down anxieties because we believe the people who present themselves to others without these trappings are more acceptable, desirable, and welcome.

And that’s how the loneliness and fears grow. They lie to us about our worth. Their grip on us tightens and reinforces our distance from those who would really know our hearts.

Those lies battle with the truth that we need others, and the truth that real strength lies not in hiding, but in vulnerability. Life is not found behind closed doors.

In an unguarded moment not long ago, I moved toward a friend. I clung to a glimmer of hope that maybe I wasn’t alone; maybe she felt it too. We began a hesitant companionship, marked with vulnerability hangovers from fear we overshared. Several times one or the other of us nearly canceled a lunch date because the thought of baring ourselves felt too heavy. But slowly, we pushed past our fears toward each other.

After a while, we thought maybe we weren’t alone. Maybe other women wanted, needed, a place to be raw, real, seen, and heard too. So we invited a few. And they came.

Four of us are on a journey of opening to each other. Between work and travel and family, we carve out times together where we simply ask, “how are you?” and make space for more than rote answers.

We have, each of us, wondered if we fit in with the others.

As we open doors into deeper recesses of our hearts, we navigate fear.

We brave disappointing one another with our honest selves.

Together, we invite each other’s childlike selves to show up, share wounds that need care, and receive the tenderness and empathy we need. We share where our hearts are in the process of being awkwardly awake and alive to the mess of life, parenting, friendship, and ministry.

One week, a flurry of text messages appeared about getting together. I chimed in that I couldn’t come, and received no response. With a sinking feeling in my gut, I watched as they excitedly planned time without me.

The loneliness and fear called back to me, telling me how foolish it was to believe I could leave them behind. They whispered of my lack. Told me I was dispensable. Noted how quickly I was passed over.

When our group sat down in our booth at Panera the next week, I swallowed hard and spoke my lies. These friends listened, understood, and opened the door for me to reclaim my space with them.

The triumph of the child over the Pharisee often feels less like victory and more like heart thumping hope as we bring our true selves to each other, vulnerable and exposed.

I need these women, and they need me. While the enemy conspires with a thousand little lies to keep us from being open with others, the Spirit whispers to us that it is worth it, this baring of our souls.

He bids us come with our childlike selves, and believe there is a place for us.

Needing others is not weakness. It is not something to be despised or masked, but rather something to be embraced and celebrated.

There is a place for each of us. Open the door.

Related posts:

The Soul Needs to Be Seen 

On Becoming Real

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The Secret to 20 Years of Marriage

The Secret to 20 Years of Marriage
photo by freestock.org

20 years ago, I walked excitedly down a church aisle to my grinning man. Standing on the wooden steps, light streaming in from the high windows, we said our first yeses to one another as husband and wife.

Marriage starts with a yes. We enter in bravely saying, “Yes, I will journey this life with you,” most of us barely knowing what that will really mean.

That first yes is easy. But what is the secret to staying married for the long haul?

Marriage is a million yeses.

We say yes to doing the dishes, getting up with the kid in the middle of the night, mowing the lawn, and a thousand other tasks we would probably rather not do.

We choose to step toward reconciliation when we’ve disagreed, to forgive, to admit wrong.

Decisions are made to deny our own desires, our ways, our plans, and allow someone else’s wants and needs to trump our own.

We overlook the offense, accept the quirks, smile instead of frown at the annoying habit, knowing that the thing that bothers us will probably happen again tomorrow.

Wrinkles, receding hairlines, stretch marks, and pot bellies we accept into the story.

Walking together through the valleys and the challenges, going places we would rather not go, is a choice we make.

We commit to being in their court even if no one else is.

Naked vulnerability, physically and emotionally, becomes part of how we live.

We sign on daily to bear witness to someone else’s ordinary and extraordinary moments.

We say yes to all of this and more.

Sometimes a yes is easy.

It feels like the most natural thing in the world. We say it gladly, as though it was what we were made for.

But other days, a yes is sacrificial, so hard we feel like we deserve a medal for it (note: my husband should have oodles of medals for saying yes to me. He’s on track for sainthood).

Some days a yes asks too much humility, too much vulnerability, when our hearts are already raw. It’s tempting, in those times, to let our yeses become nos. The more we do that, the more our hearts close.

Some days we determine that our spouses don’t deserve a yes, and we’re right. So often they don’t (and neither do we).

But this is where we’re called back to the economy of the Kingdom, which says we have been overwhelmed with what we don’t deserve, and we are called to model our lives and marriages after our Savior. God says yes to us again and again, moving toward us despite our response or worthiness.

Each time we choose to move toward each other, we create a greater space for the other to rest in, a place of acceptance, grace, love, and commitment, of belonging, permanence, and rootedness. The yeses deepen our dependence on each other, claiming ground in each others’ hearts.

Each yes to our spouse is a reflection of the relentless, pursuing love of God.

This is the opportunity we have, not only in marriage, but in all relationships-to say yes when it’s hard, when we’d rather go our own way, and serve ourselves. We journey well together when we choose to give and move toward each other, holding tight, leaning on each other.

So we keep saying yes, day after day, year after year. That’s the secret to how we got here. And it’s how we’ll keep going.

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When You Love Someone With Special Needs

When You Love Someone with Special Needs
me and my sister, circa 1978

One of the things that brings me the greatest joy is to hear my children talking to my sister. When they talk with her, they sweetly ask questions and patiently listen to her stories. They treat her with compassion. They make her feel loved. It’s like a balm to my soul.

Why? Because my sister is mentally challenged.

What it’s like to love someone who is challenged

Growing up with an older sister who is mentally challenged, I had an acute radar for how other people responded to her. I vetted every friend who came over, watching to see if they would treat her normally. I eyed strangers in public, ready to give them the stink eye if they so much as smirked at her. (You don’t want to be on the receiving end of my stink eye).

While my parents encouraged her as much as possible to live an independent life, she will always need others’ help and support. She is a perpetual child in an adult body; trusting, simple, open. She needs others to stand with her, to listen to her, to guide her, to do for her what she cannot do for herself.

As adults, I’m not as worried about her as I was as a child, but I still want to shelter her. During the 2012 election, we needed to vote early, so I picked her up on Halloween. She exited her house wearing a pink princess costume with a silver crown.

I paused for a minute and then thought, “Ok, let’s go with it.”

Of course we got stares and questioning looks at the voting booths. Part of me felt the need to justify why a 42-year-old woman was wearing a princess costume. Another part of me wanted everyone to act like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Actually, I wanted more than that. I wanted people to feel the way I felt about her – that they would think that it was awesome that she was wearing exactly what made her happy on a holiday.

How I want people to see her

I wanted them to see her as the gift she is; a precious, God-given gift.

My sister loves purely and wholeheartedly. She delights in little things, in being part of everything. Trust and acceptance come easily to her. She gives me opportunities to grow in being compassionate, patient, gentle, loving, protective of the weak, accepting of the different.

And that’s why it’s such a blessing when others step in and love her alongside me. It says, “I see that she is precious too. I will stand with you in loving her.” It says we are not alone, that others will be the protectors, the helpers, the givers. They will recognize the value in her.

So if you know someone who is challenged in some way, know that taking the time to love them isn’t just a gift to them. It’s a gift to those who love them as well. Thank you.

Related:

Promises to My Children

What Parents Really Need to Hear

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Settled

One of the most frequent questions I get here is, “So do you feel settled?” Honestly, I’m not sure what being settled means. Does it mean we aren’t eating off lawn furniture anymore? That everything’s up on the walls? That it feels like home?

When people see our house, they are usually a little amazed that it does look settled. In fact, we usually get comments about how quickly we’ve done it, how they haven’t finished painting the house they’ve been living in for 10 years, etc.

It never occurred to us not to do it this way, so we started talking about why. When Erik and I move into a new place, we unpack and settle in like we’re gunning for a new HGTV show called “Instant House.” When people share that they still have boxes unpacked after years of living somewhere, I am baffled. Don’t you need that stuff? Usually within a week we’ve unpacked 90% of our boxes or more. That’s just how we roll.

But we do it because we know that feeling settled in our hearts is connected to where we live. When you’ve moved as many times as we have (seven so far in 16 years), your sense of home gets fuzzy. It’s become important to us to create the space around us that says, “You’re welcome here. This is known.”

Many of my expat friends embrace an opposite view – why bother settling in when you’re likely to have to move in 2 years? (FYI we are not planning on moving in 2 years). It does feel like a lot of unnecessary work. But if we had lived by that mentality, we would have spent the last 13 years without ever feeling like our house was our home. No thank you.

I find it spills over into relationships as well. It’s SO easy, when you’ve lived the transient lifestyle of an expat, to learn to guard your heart in relationships. Our kids learned it quickly. After just two years in Singapore, where life was a revolving door, I introduced Ethan to a new boy. His question to me was, “How long is he going to be here?” It can begin to feel safer, better, to choose not to settle in to relationships when the end point seems so close.

Home. Relationships. These are places where we need to settle our hearts, even if it means that just around the corner the roots will be pulled and the emotional dirt will fly. We’re learning to be all in, to dive in deep, to make the most of whatever time we get wherever, with whomever.

Are we settled? We’re trying to be, just as fast as we can.

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Weird

I’ve said it before – I feel weird.

I don’t mean to be weird, but I find that when I try to participate in conversation with new people, I am now “the girl who tells strange, foreign, potentially exaggerated stories.” My stories usually start with “In (fill in the blank of a foreign country)” and involve statements like, “and the bathroom just had boards over a trough in the ground . . . ” or “so I was cleaning out the inside of the chicken . . . ”

Bringing these stories up in conversation with new people feels like the social equivalent of dragging the needle across the record at a party, or jumping on a couch and yelling, “Boing!” It puts me in the category of “weird.”

I don’t mean to throw conversational curve balls, but I’m just sharing what I know. I’m reminded of an interpersonal communication class I took in college, where we were taught that each person in a conversation has a circle of experience from which they speak. Where our circles overlap with others, that’s where we find common ground from which to interact and understand one another. When we try to share part of our circle that doesn’t overlap with another’s, it can be as though we are speaking another language. In living 13 years overseas, my circle has shifted away from others. I have shifted.

After awhile, I’m tempted just to not speak at all. At times it feels like the easier, safer option. I might not be able to participate in the group, but at least I don’t feel like an outsider.

Then Friday morning and again last night I went to places populated with people who have also landed themselves in the “weird” category. And I heard phrases like, “In China . . .” and “the guy glued my Birkenstocks back together for $2!” and best of all, I heard, “I know exactly how you feel.”

I guess that’s all I need. I know I’ll always be a little weird here. I’m ok with that, as long as once in awhile someone comes along and reminds me that I’m not alone in my weirdness, and that they are a little weird too.

IMG_2207

 

See, my stories involve things like this. I just don’t get this kind of stuff in America.

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Looking for friends

Boxes unpacked, check. (if I just don’t open the office door).

Walls painted, mostly check.

Nearest grocery store, Walmart, Target located, check.

Invisible fence installed, check.

Find new friends . . . oy.

Truth be told, I am an introvert. A talkative introvert, which causes no small amount of dissonance for me, but an introvert nonetheless. I am tempted to say, “Hey, I’ve got a couple good friends here in Orlando. I’m calling it good!” But that seems horribly shortsighted and unsociable, so I did what I guess the average American woman does this time of year and I went to a neighborhood cookie exchange.

After a few desperate, somewhat humbling texts to a new neighbor clarifying that I did not, in fact, have to bring actual cookies (I hate sugar cookies. I’m a bar kind of girl), I headed out to the party. It was only a block and a half away, and as I walked, I pondered my emotions. I was dreading small talk and the inevitable shock and awe when I explain my life. I was nervous that I wouldn’t fit in, that people wouldn’t want to talk to me, that I wouldn’t meet anyone I liked. I was excited that I might meet someone who could become a good friend. In short, I felt like a kindergartener on the first day of school (although I imagine the average five year old brings little to the table that evokes shock or awe).

There were probably 50 women at this event! Most of them were older than me. A few homeschool as well. Most seemed to attend this annual party regularly. Almost everyone talked about how much they love living in our neighborhood (certainly a good sign).

I walked away knowing a couple women a little more, bearing invites to a clothing swap and a regular wine and cheese chat with a couple girls down the street, and wielding a large plate of cookies. I can’t say I can check the box on “new friends” (I realize now a part of me was really hoping it would be that easy) but it was a step in the right direction.

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I Miss My Friends

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For the first week that I was in the States, I literally did not want to talk to anyone. I had used up all my words, all my social capacity, in the weeks prior to leaving. The introvert in me was crying, “Uncle!” and I couldn’t imagine a day when I would actually want, let alone need, to interact with people again.

Ok, so now I can.

I am immensely grateful that we are here staying with family. Right now that also includes my brother and sister-in-law who make life fun and meaningful. I’ve missed them terribly. My oldest, dearest friend Laura lives just minutes away and that too is very good. I love that I can text and call my stateside friends now (although I keep thinking about the time difference before I call, which is unnecessary).

But I still miss my friends. I am reading Addiction and Grace, and I wish I could talk to Karen about it because she read it too. I know that my friend Sung is moving and I wish I could be there to help her pack and watch her kids and consult with her on how to cover the landlord’s left behind furniture. My friend Tammy’s family had yet another trip to the hospital (they should really open a new wing in their name) and I wish I could be there to process it with her. I want to hear about Martha’s trip to Thailand in person. And on and on it goes.

I am thankful that God is surrounding us here with people we love. I am confident that in Orlando we will find new friends. But I can’t help feeling that I don’t just want new friends – I want my old ones here! This is when I start praying that they will all feel strongly led to move to Orlando. 🙂

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