These last six months or so have been extremely difficult. I moved three times, left my job (and accepted a position with fewer hours and a massive cut in pay), and went through an extremely difficult breakup. In the midst of those things I went on medication to stabilize my mood because I felt like I was living on a roller coaster. And, most recently, I encountered unemployment — 10 weeks so far.
During this time, I basically ceased contact with some of my long-term friends simply because I could not write home with good news. I was nervous about the idea of calling and telling them that life seemed to be falling apart with no hope of restoration in sight. This was especially true with friends who entrusted me to follow through on a commitment I made to them. And, while I recognize that my closest friends and family will not be scared off even in the worst of times, my human nature (and the subsequent tendency to believe that others will give up on me when times are tough) tells me that it is better to hide my “flaws” and put on a façade that all is well.
As people with varying degrees of faith and notions of God, I think that we sometimes have this tendency in approaching God. We want to have it all together and try to fool God — whatever form God takes in our lives — into believing that we have it all together. The truth, though, is that God recognizes that we are in need of healing, whether we make that clear or not. And beyond openness with God, our own communities — friends, family and even strangers — can fill in our blanks and help us through difficult times.
The key is to be honest and recognize that at different times in life we are going to be a burden or a blessing. And at other times in life our friends and family will seem to be a burden or a blessing. But the notion that we remain in healthy community — sometimes falling into the safety net and other times being the safety net — is what makes us fully human.
Life is hard sometimes for each of us. But we are not alone. And I believe we were not meant to be alone. We need each other. We need to be brutally honest and vulnerable. But we also need to be brutally open to sharing the burdens of others.
