It's Hard to Pull It Together

Galatians 6:2 says to bear each other's burdens, in this way fulfilling the law of Christ.

I'm convinced God asks us to do this so that we can be His love to each other through a physical sense.  It's no lie, sometimes life is too much to handle, and if you don't believe that, your time is coming.  Just wait.

But it's true.  I've been there, there's a good chance that you've been there, and we all know someone else who has been there.   There are just times where life seems to difficult, circumstances too severe, the pain too unbearable.  I've been in that boat.

But, never before now have I felt the burdens of those around me as I do now.  Maybe this is a lesson in compassion for me, who knows, but God has suddenly made me painfully and agonizingly aware of the hurt and conflict going on in the lives of people whom I hold very dear to my heart, and my heart feels shattered for them .  It seems as if so many of those we care about are traveling through the desert right now.  So many are hurting, for so many different reasons, and I'm feeling their hurt.  I'm sure it is not to the same extent, but God is allowing me to carry their burden with them.  It was all I could do to hold myself together in church today... and just this past week I was weeping on the phone with Aaron about friends of ours going through a difficult time.

I feel an urgency to 'do' something, to help someway, to be a shoulder, an ear, a hand, a prayer warrior, a friend.  Yet, I wish there was so much more I could do.  I want to weep with now and rejoice with later.  I want to encourage, and I want the truth to win out.  I feel vested in the lives of these people and I can not separate myself.  The hurt is too great in my own life.  I want to hug them all and say, whether the sun shines tomorrow, or next week or three years from now, God willing, I'll be there.  I'll carry this with you.  That would be my prayer for when the shoe changes feet.  It'll be me again someday.


I'm praying now that God would do more, in all of these situations, than we ever guessed was fathomable, or more than we'd ever imagined He would or could do.  I pray for peace and healing.  I pray for relationships restored, strength, and for our God, who holds all things together, to bless the families He has created and will yet be creating.  And to He be all the glory. 

Until we see that mountaintop...
Alicia