When you keep your struggles to yourself, you short-circuit a powerful connection of vulnerability with others. Life was made to be lived in community – interdependently!
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and, oh, do I love my sisters!
Just a month or so ago Ken and I traveled back east for an Eareckson reunion on our family farm. Driving down the narrow road that runs along the Patapsco River and then winds up to and along our pasture fences, I was near tears, just reflecting on all the many memories: cutting hay in the summer, 4-H club, raising calves, mucking stalls, and horseback riding with my sisters. On a frosty autumn day like this one, Linda and Cathy and Jay Kay and I could not wait to saddle up and ride for hours through the state park behind our farm.
Well, my sisters and I are much older now; actually, at 73 years old myself, I’m the youngest. There are very few horses grazing the pastures now, and my older sisters live at a slower pace. I noticed that two sisters are struggling a bit with pain, aging, and memory issues. I suggested they might need a little help. But no one wants to be a burden when you’re an Eareckson. They think it’ll all work out. “God will take care of me,” they say.
You know, perhaps you have an older loved one in your family who says the same! Maybe there are people in your church who say, “You know, I just don’t want to bother anyone; I can manage by myself okay.” But when we keep our struggles to ourselves, we short-circuit a powerful connection of vulnerability with others. We prevent others from meeting a God-designed need. And that design calls for us to be responsible for one another. Galatians 6 says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Now, my pastor tells me that that Greek word for “bear one another’s burdens” infers that it’s not a one-time thing. It is a lifestyle of continuing to carry one another’s loads. Because God did not create us to be independent; we were made to be interdependent – I say this all the time with my own disability. I simply cannot make it on my own; I could not survive were it not for people who help me bear the burden of getting me up in the mornings and helping me go to bed at night. I’m interdependent! God never intended us to provide everything we need on our own.
I thought about this when I was with my older sisters, two of whom are now in their 80s. I’d give anything if I could just get up out of my wheelchair and go help them with their needs. Jesus said, “Love one another just as I have loved you.” And when we help our loved ones who are older, we are in direct obedience of that command from Jesus. You know, this is National Family Week; and it’s appropriate that it falls in the season of Thanksgiving. I am so very thankful for the many ways my sisters helped me when I broke my neck years ago. They did everything they could to bear my many burdens. Every time they gave me a bed bath, sat me up in the wheelchair, they were fulfilling the law of Christ – the law of love. Hey, I’ve posted a couple of heartwarming photos of my sisters and me from our recent reunion back east. Just visit joinradio.org and be blessed by their smiles. I love these photos of my sisters and it would mean a lot to share them with you. Again, I’ve posted them up on joniradio.org. So, friend, as you gather for Thanksgiving tomorrow, are there ways you could help bear the burdens of others around your table? Perhaps older loved ones who have needs? Then find a way to fulfill God’s design in your family, would you? And then, tomorrow, you’ll have a blessed Thanksgiving, because you’ll be fulfilling the law of love around your table. God bless you today, and thanks for listening!
© Joni and Friends