especially when the burden is my spouse's? because those burdens are mine too.
like, when chas was in the hospital the first time. i had a picture of us meeting crisis like a hallmark card. or like an ensign article. or like...well, i don't know...like the music on jodi's blog. all full of rainbows and marriage to your best friend and everything gonna be all right. it was a photo down a long stark hallway of a couple embracing and strengthening each other. it had a hazy lens look.
but, we weren't the picturesque image i imagined we would be. we were real. we were still us. we still bickered. we both felt overwhelmed. we were both worried beyond description. thank heavens we had others to strengthen us. to help us bear those burdens. i wished we could have carried each other. i wished, at the time, that i could sustain him. i wished he could console me.
as we meet challenges again, i wonder how i can deliver him? i don't like to watch people i love struggle. come to think of it, i don't like to struggle myself.
bearing another's burden, when its already a shared load is complicated. its like buying each other christmas gifts out of the same bank account.
do you just watch? like when a kid is throwing up and you sit by them even though its gross.
do you panic too, so that you are truly empathizing and then you both drown together?
do you smile and say it will all be ok and try to create a happy mood around the house which just might be the waterwings for everyone? but maybe that seems oblivious, even callous.
"the fold of God...his people...are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light" (mosiah 18:8)
i'm willing. i just haven't figured it out yet.
that could almost be my life motto. (or my next blog theme.)
1 comment:
Please let me know when you figure it out. I hate the helpless feeling of not knowing how to help. Prayers to you.
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