Bearing One Another's Burdens by Overcoming Fear

One time when my son was young, he had a good friend whose father passed away. I wasn't super good friends with the wife of this man. It was one of those relationships where your kids are really good friends and so you interact because of our children, but don’t really hang out outside of that. I really loved this mother of my son's friend, but I still didn't know her that well.

I was brokenhearted when I heard this news and didn’t know what to say or do. I remember wanting to call her, but I did not know what to say. I was scared I would say the wrong thing. So I knelt down to pray and I asked the Lord to help me know what to say and to give me the courage to make this phone call. As I got up, I felt the push, “just do it, Monica, just call.” So I did, I picked up the phone and I called and was honestly relieved when it went to voicemail, but I went ahead and left a message. 

I didn't have a chance to talk to the wife at the funeral but it was a couple months later when I ran into this mother at the grocery store. While talking, she told me, “Monica, I'm sorry that I never returned your phone call.” And of course, I never expected a return phone call, but she went on to say, “I want you to know that I did hear the message when you called me that day and I just want you to know how much it meant to me. You know, you were the only person that called me besides my parents the day that he died.” 

I was frozen, I didn't know what to think. I was just so shocked that she said I was the only person that called. Please don't think that I’m trying to pat myself on the back. There's been so many times that I didn't have the courage to call people when I should have called them. This is one time that I did call and I was so close to not calling her that day. 

It was over the next several weeks, as I ran across a couple of people that knew her, that it dawned on me why no one called her. They didn't call her for the same reason I didn't want to call her, because we were scared. Scared to say the wrong thing and didn't know what to say.

That experience taught me such a valuable lesson. Now I had this motto that says, just do it. I had it before Nike had it and should have trademarked it. Just call, just say it, just apologize, just don't wait.

Just do it.

So often we hesitate when we're feeling like we should do something, we let fear get the best of us. If I didn't call her that day, it wouldn't be because I was afraid of anything that she would do. I was afraid for myself. I was afraid that it would be hard or that I would say the wrong thing. So often our fear comes from trying to protect ourselves, but the Lord wants us to be vulnerable, have faith, and to trust in him so that when we are on his errand, we have his support.

It takes faith that when we do what we know is right or when we go forward when we know something is good, even though it's difficult, then that is when we're on the Lord's errand.

I just want to leave you with an invitation to consider the different ways that we can bear one another's burdens. How we can help one another to ease the things that we're all carrying. 

I think one of the best things we can do is, in our morning prayers, ask the Lord to help us know today who needs our help. What burdens do we need to help carry today? I know that when we do that, more often than not, throughout the day we will get a thought of somebody that we need to reach out to. Maybe someone that we need to call or maybe someone in the grocery store that we need to give an extra big smile. Those ways are ways that we can carry one another's burdens.

Bearing One Another's Burdens by Lightening the Load

I know, we usually don't tell everyone all of the burdens that we are carrying at any given moment for obvious reasons, right? Typically, when someone comes up and says, “Hey, how are you doing Monica?” 98% of the time I'm going to say “I'm doing great” because that's just my response. That doesn't mean that I'm not doing great, but typically, I'm not going to unload whatever burden I'm currently carrying onto just anyone, and I'm sure you're the same way.

We pick and choose and are careful with who we share our burdens with. I'm not going to get into who we're supposed to share our burdens with and who we're not, I couldn't do that even if I tried. That is such a personal decision. It has a lot to do with how we trust one another and the people that we feel safe to share things with.

When I think about burdens, I like to relate them to a physical burden. For instance, if we thought about the weight of carrying on our backs, a backpack full of rocks. Depending on how many rocks we have in our backpack, and how big and heavy those rocks are, that determines how heavy our burden is.

As you can guess, if we started sharing our burdens, taking one rock at a time out of our backpack and letting some other people carry a few of those rocks, it would lighten our burden. Then you're thinking, “yeah, but it would also give other people a burden that maybe wasn't theirs to bear.” So now I'm taking my burden and dumping it on someone.

When you start to think those thoughts, stop and think, who wants to try to get us to think like that? Who wants you to feel alone in your burdens?

I want you to think about your own children or someone that you love, someone that you care about. What would it feel like? What would you feel like if 10 years down the road you found out that your child or the person that you love so dearly had been carrying a secret, a painful burden, and they had been carrying it for 10 years and you didn't know about it? How during those 10 years you had just treated that person like you always do and interacted with that person like normal. If you found out that there had been this burden thatyou had no idea about. Would that make you sad?

Would you regret that you hadn't known? Would you wish that you could have known, because you would have liked to have helped if you could? Even if you couldn't solve the burden or fix the problem, wouldn’t you have liked to at least known about it. So that you could have prayed for that person. So that you could have been a shoulder to cry on for that person. So that you could have allowed yourself to be a listening ear for that person. Wouldn’t you feel better if you could have done something, something to have comforted your loved one.

It's easy for us to want to help those we love carry their burdens, but it's so hard for us to allow other people to help us carry our burdens.

I understand we don't want to be a burden to people, but we've got to remember that one of he greatest joys we each individually will feel in our life is the joy that comes with knowing that we were able to play a small role in helping someone. It's a great joy to know that our life has purpose and meaning. To me, one of the best ways for me to feel like my life has meaning is when I'm able to experience helping someone else.

So, If we know that that is a way that we experience joy and we experience growth, then we've got to allow other people to serve us in that same way. I would like to invite you to, if you're carrying a burden, and I know that you are at this moment, that you have not shared with anyone, I would invite you to spend a little time in prayer and ask the Lord to help you to know who the right person is for you to share your burden with. I know that it will be a blessing to you when you have someone to help you carry the rocks that are on your back.

This topic of bearing one another’s burdens, actually comes from a chapter in our book, “Raising a Generation of Ladies and Gentlemen” which was inspired from scripture.

Bearing One Another's Burdens by Listening Without Judgement

This topic of, bearing one another’s burdens, actually comes from a chapter in our book, “Raising a Generation of Ladies and Gentlemen.” This also comes from scripture. The idea is that we have a responsibility to one another to help carry one another's burdens. 

We all have our favorite people that we like to talk to and one of those people for me was my grandmother. She was an incredible listener. I’m not quite sure how she did it, I've tried to think about it. Was it the way she looked at me? Was it the way that she tilted her head whenever I was telling her something? Was it because she never really offered me advice? She really didn't. I can't remember my grandma after confining in her a problem I was having ever saying, “Well, Monica, I think you need to do this.” Nevertheless, after I would talk to her about my problems, I felt better. Also, a lot of times as I discussed things with her, at the end of the conversation I would have some ideas about things I might could do to help fix the problem. As I've thought about that over the years, I think her gift was just listening.

I never felt like she was judging me because as you can imagine as a teenager, I made a lot of crazy mistakes and I'm sure as I sat there telling her my dilemmas that deep down she was going, “Oh dear gracious child, how could you be so dumb?” But boy, she never made me feel that way. She just listened. I just knew she loved me and that she just wanted to show her love to me, and so she listened. I know that one of the greatest gifts we can give to others carrying burdens is to listen.

Now, that’s easier said than done, to listen without judgment is hard. It’s hard not to get animated or emotional when we see people we love making foolish decisions. However, typically, I haven't changed my behavior based on someone telling me, “Monica, that was so foolish. You should have done this, or you need to do this.” Usually, that's not what made me go, “Hey, you're right. I should do it this way.” Usually we come to our own determination after making mistakes, learning the hard way. Sometimes even listening to others experiences, and what they've learned, is a great way to grow, but usually we have to be ready to change our behavior.

Learning how to listen without judging others, learning how to listen without quickly jumping into wanting to give people advice is a great gift and a way that we can help carry other people's burdens. Probably if my children, hard me telling you all that we need to listen without giving advice, they would laugh at that because I give my children lots of advice. I am trying so hard not to give my adult children advice. It's a struggle that I am trying every week to get better about that. I know that my children and those that I love, respond to me the best when I listen without jumping to advice.

Often when we are in trouble, we typically don't want or need other people to solve our problems. However, like you’ve probably have heard me say before, it feels really good when people say things like, “Monica, I am so sorry that you're going through that. That makes me so sad that your family is struggling or that you're having to carry this burden.” It feels good just to know that people care. That is another way we can carry and bear one another's burdens, just showing that when they're sad, we're sad, and when they suffer, we suffer, because that's what we do when we love one another.

I heard a quote very recently and it said “When you meet someone, treat them as if they were in serious trouble and you will be right more than half the time.” I thought that was such an interesting quote and I bet you that that quote is correct.

Anytime we're interacting with anyone, whether it's people that we know or people that we don't know, more than likely we're surrounded by several people who are in serious trouble. Maybe serious trouble with their marriage, serious trouble with their faith, serious trouble with their child, serious trouble at work or with a serious illness or a serious emotional need. 

If we could see those burdens, would we act differently? If only there was a bubble above everyone's head that listed the burdens that they were currently carrying. For example, if we could see that when we're waiting in the post office line, this lady in front of us was diagnosed with cancer three weeks ago, her mother is in failing health, she has a wayward son, et cetera, et cetera. If we had those bubbles above our head, do you think we would treat each other a little differently? Do you think we would be a little kinder? Do you think we would be more quick to smile and say “Hello, how are you?” Do you think it would change the way we treat one another? 

Just because we can't see those bubbles doesn’t mean those burdens aren’t there. They are there.

I'm a visual person, and so for me it helps me to imagine those bubbles when I interact with people, it helps me to think, “I wonder what their bubble would say.” That doesn't mean I need to know what their bubble would say, but I bet you they’ve got a bubble and I bet you there's some things written in it.

So as we interact with others, if we treat others as if they're in trouble, we probably would be right. Not just half of the time, but most of the time.