“We then who are strong…”
Romans 15:1
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It’s funny how different relationships can be. I often marvel at how my relationship with my son is different from my relationship with my daughter. We’re all together a lot of the time, and we’re all crazy about each other, but I have some things in common with just her (y’know, girl stuff) and some things in common with my boy (a shared love of baseball, for instance).
One of the ways my daughter and I love each other, is in recognizing each other’s moods. When one of us isn’t feeling well, the other one knows it. And then we can do things for each other like making breakfast or maybe taking care of a chore. We all have to go to a little extra effort, when it’s for someone else, ya know?
It’s sort of like when I broke my toe last year. I was limping around the house, leaning on pieces of furniture as I walked, because I needed the support. And I remember one Sunday morning during that time, when my sweetie and I sat in church. I wanted to elevate my foot a little to lessen the pain, but it’s difficult when there’s only a chair back in front of you. So I turned a little to one side so I could get part of my leg onto the chair next to me. (We were in the back and had the whole row to ourselves, so it’s not like my foot was intruding in someone else’s comfort zone.)
But I had to lean funny to angle myself that way, and I ended up leaning on my honey for back support. Having me leaning on him meant that he had to be strong and he couldn’t completely relax in his seat. I needed the support, and he strengthened himself for me.
Often, when someone close to us is weak, it means that we have to be stronger. We have to show them the peace or the trust or the joy that they’ve lost sight of. And sometimes that means we have to work harder than we’d like to, when we’d like to just relax.
I see this in my family a lot. Last week I needed to go on a long drive with my girl. The night before, after dinner, my sweetie took my car to fill it with gas so I’d have plenty for the trip. He’d been working all day of course, but instead of just kicking back in a comfortable chair, he did something to make my life easier. And of course, I do it for him, we do it for the kids, and they do it for us. I drop what I’m doing to help one of my kids with their schoolwork, the kids might do each other’s chores, or wash their dad’s car…
We can’t all be strong all the time. But you’d be surprised how much stronger you can be, when someone you love is feeling weak.
Light Expectations 