I sat with a friend last week and we talked about how incredibly difficult life is. Guards were down, pretensions dropped, and we were real, raw and vulnerable.
It was good for my soul to tell her that just the week before I cried big ugly tears in my car because I was feeling left out in certain friendships.
Turns out she was experiencing the same thing from a group of friends. I felt less defeated and alone.
We talked about trouble with our kids and sleep regression, the attitude shift of our elementary aged kids.
We talked about our husbands and difficult things in our marriages.
We talked about feelings of inadequacy and feeling like failures in motherhood.
We talked about not feeling seen or heard in certain areas of our lives.
We just TALKED, all of burdens placed there on that table with our overpriced grilled chicken wraps and sweet potato fries.
We didn’t solve a single problem, but we released the problems from captivity in our hearts and for an hour we carried each others burden.
And it was FREEING.
We aren’t alike,
She stays home, I work. She has three kids—boys and girls, I have two girls.
She is many years younger than me,
I have been married twice as long as she has.
But we face the SAME issues in motherhood, friendships, and marriage.
We have the same hurts and struggles.
We both are carrying burdens that at times become too heavy to press on.
We have different lives, different circumstances but we understood each others hearts and hurts.
How often do we think we can’t share our hurts because we think no one will understand?
How often do we suffer in silence because we don’t want to burden others?
God calls us to bear one another’s burdens.
In Galatians 6:2 God says, “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.”
It’s a simple sentence, but if you dive in and break it apart, in this one sentence God is calling us to engage in community.
He is calling us to share with other our faults and failures.
He is saying listen to others with your ears and your hearts.
He is saying support each other, He is saying when you share the weight it lightens the load.
God says so much with just one sentence. Tell others what’s on your heart, listen and share your heart in return.
It will help lighten the load for you both.
Originally published to Facebook Feb 5, 2020