Caring is hard.
Caring in words and action requires something of us that can be difficult to weather. Encouraging each other and building each other up as Paul exhorts us is not a light flippant experience that is easily done and over with.
Caring and caregiving can be hard.
When you’re bent over picking up the details and Cheerios left by others for you to gather up.
When you’re crying and know that your next tissue is the last in the house and there will be no more without you buying them.
When you sit with someone and the grief overwhelms you both as words seem few and far between and ineffective.
When you pray for change and relief and in the middle comes the phone call letting you know that change is not coming.
When you know your calling is to fulfill the greatest commandments, to first love God and then love others, but you long for a purpose that feels all your own, somehow, just yours.
When you’re bearing the burdens of another and loving them means taking the heavier portion of the yoke.
Whether it’s family or friends, strangers or life-long acquaintances, loving others means being caregivers.
Sacrifice is hard.
No matter how you look at the verses saying that Christ suffered and sacrificed and we will be called to as well, there is still a part of us that recoils and rebels against sacrifice.
Because it is hard. It is often unseen. It is letting go of a part of your own time and desires and wants to set aside time and energy for another.
And we will be exhausted, and frustrated, and grieving, in this act of caregiving, in this act of loving each other as Christ loved the Church.
Sacrifice is hard. Journeying with another is hard. Feeling overburdened and helpless at the same time, that’s hard.
But this is what we step into, as we follow the suffering Servant. The one who, with the full knowledge of God at his fingertips, stepped into bearing the burdens for the weight of the world, for ages past and to come.
It is hard and holy work. To walk alongside another in their need and our imperfection.
To willingly get up, sink to our knees in prayer and sharing of circumstances, this is our calling in community with each other.
This is not a mindset embraced by the inward focused. This is not a mindset that, in my roughest and solitary hours, that I glory in.
But it is glorious work. Because with each other we bear our burdens. We show up. We pray. We encourage. We emphatically encourage. We call on each other and call each other up to bigger and better and into hope.
We were given to each other as a gift. To walk together, to crawl together as we learn and struggle together.
And we celebrate together.
We celebrate small successes and the completion of long journeys in the night of the soul.
We laugh at past stories and at the days to come.
We stand strong as another’s wind of pain blows around us.
And we lean on each other. We receive and we give. We point each other to Christ and we carry each other as we journey towards him.
It is hard work but it is blessed work. It is work worth doing because it shows us how to love as Christ loved. Sacrificially and whole heartedly. And in the midst we see more of Him. More of Christ. More of who we are in him as we reflect his light, wearily, to each other.
It is this Christ-light in us that helps us hope in glory. That helps us to see each other differently and makes the suffering together easier, somehow.
Leaning in to the sacrifice of Christ helps us to be more like him. To learn from him how to do this work of loving others. To learn from him how he works in us in the midst, bringing Spirit-fruit into our hungry and weary souls.
Caring is hard work but it is holy work, shown by the Servant in all things, over all things. He has and does bear our burdens as we bear those of others. We are not alone in our caring. His caring for us strengthens the weary, cools the angry, sooths the frustrated, and gathers the tears. Because he cares for us we are able to care for others. He strengthens and provides out of boundless love and understanding. His mercies are new and fresh for each day.
What we carry today, he carries with us. He sees us when we feel unseen. He knows where we are today and sits with us as we sit with others in it. He is there, he knows, he cares and carries.