This week alone has been trying in my world of friends. Last night my neighbor was transported by ambulance to ER. This past week my friend got the comment from her doctor that her blood work shows huge complications. Another is 'losing' her husband bit by bit to Lewy Body dementia. Another had health complications, is selling her house and moving to adult living in Denver. And still two others called and asked how they could connect with Palliative Care.
So many of us mere humans feel we must shoulder our worries and frailties alone. We feel by asking for help or sharing our worry, we look weak. The truth is we are made to live in community. We are made to have people in our lives. We are made to be 'part' of a whole, not to be the whole!
We don't want to burden others and we don't have to. What we do have to do is to be the kind of friend who knows when to challenge and when to comfort. We need to be the kind of friend who accepts others as they are and not try to change them into our image; we are relational beings. That means we are 'in relationship', not alone.
I read this thought today and it is so true for me. It is what I have been thinking as I have maneuvered through this week:
"Life in this fallen world is hard. Preparation is hard. Change is hard. It's easy to get discouraged. It's easy to feel overwhelmed. It's easy to remain or revert to being self-absorbed. It's easy to feel alone. It's easy to think that no one understands what you are going through".
How do we take that truth and shift our thinking to include others? It was truly hard to walk along side Russ as he journeyed his last year. It was easy to lose my way and want to give up, but Russ and I were a team, we were community. Our need was to enlarge our community of two and draw in friends, family, therapists, doctors, and church family. It wasn't just about us. We both believed we needed to 'live the example' rather than hide our struggles, to help others see that life is not endless, and that we must connect with that reality. Every person we reached out to gave us strength.
As this week closes, I reflect on another piece of our truth...