Sometimes you just need an old friend.

In 1996 the internet was pretty new and chat rooms were new and people were just figuring out how they all worked. Being a cutting-edge teenager, I had an account and spent a lot of time meeting people in chat rooms and trying to find some connections that I didn't have in real life. The summer before I went to high school, I met someone who, looking back, was an unexpected gift to my awkward and lonely teenage soul. I think his screen name was Breten2, and we liked to go to this chat room. He was in school for youth ministry and I was... a youth. We connected a lot on instant messenger and with other people in the chat group. It was fun. And don't worry, it was wholesome. Back then I was really immature in all of the ways everyone around me was mature, and more mature in the ways that everyone around me wasn't. I think it made it hard for me to connect with people. But Breten2 didn't care. He just accepted me and went along with my craziness. And in the midst of the weirdness and insane teenage moments, he managed to ask the right questions and reach my heart. I think the anonymnity of a screen helped a lot. I didn't meet him in person until my senior year (I did know he was a real person becasue one of my mom's friends had a son at the same college and confirmed it. He also at one point emailed my parents so they would know he was talking to me and keep everything above board. Because he's cool like that.) 

I became less lonely as high school went on, and I had friends and I eventually met my husband-to-be. Breten2 was there through all of the stuff, though. I had to switch churches freshman year, and that was really difficult. I had a bit of a crisis of faith in that. I had lots of questions and a lot of normal-ish struggles as I navigated high school. Friendships that didn't go so well, boys I liked, youth group drama, my first kiss, my siblings, all kinds of things. Sometimes just being able to write out what you're thinking is helpful. Being a college student, Breten2 was often on messenger late at night, and I'd talk through things with him. I process easier in writing than I do by talking so it was a perfect combination. He was the easiest to talk to, and he did something very few people in my life were doing: He listened. And then he gave the best advice. Like, no one can do it like him. He just understood better than a lot of people, and even when he didn't, he still somehow knew the things to say. God used him over and over to help me see things the right way, to help me figure out relationships, and to just feel better about myself. He had such a great way of building me up and letting me see myself the way God did. He had a way of erasing my insecurities with assurance and truth spoken in just the right way. Recently I was thinking about how badly I had needed and wanted a person at church to mentor me and be part of my every day life and it didn't happen because we'd switched churches and I was actually a pretty quiet person who rarely drew attention to myself. But I got a mentor who never took credit for it. A big brother.

Slowly after I got married and became an adult, I didn't need a Breten anymore. We always stayed in touch and checked in once in a while. He got married also, and we've been pretty busy with our own seperate lives in seperate countries. Since our relationship was never in-person, it isn't weird to stay in touch only online. Our memories together are awesome and I love him for all that he's been to me. we're very different now and have less and less in common. But last week I went to the memorial of my aforementioned friend Twan and I felt horrible afterwards. I can't even articulate exactly how or why I did, but I did. And after sitting and stewing in it for a few days, thinking through so many things and remembering high school with her as my best friend, I felt like I needed some outside help to process it all. It's just such a weird and personal thing to lose a friend like that, and I spend a lot of time overthinking who would be the best person to talk to about things (usually I resort to not talking to anyone). I realized the perfect person to share with would be Breten2. We're friends on facebook, so I sent him an abnormally long message dumping my feelings and thoughts. Just like the old days. I actually felt better just doing that. It would have been enough to have just said it all to someone I knew would read it and pray for me. I told him that I just wanted him to be Breten and fix it.

He did it. He replied with the insight and widom of a counselor and youth pastor, but he also replied as my friend. Who knew me when I knew Twan, who understood the weirdness of high school relationships and how they shape us but how they aren't permanent. He gave me assurance and peace, and he helped me heal. Because that's what he does. It might not have even been everything he said (although it was helpful), but just being heard and understood and loved in the most fitting way made me all warm and fuzzy inside. Sometimes you just need an old friend. I could never thank him well enough or thoroughly enough for all the ways he's helped me, but I think he knows. At least a little. ;) Breten2 is a world-changer, but he does it in small ways that the big world doesn't see. He's a God-lover and a people-lover and if you don't have a Breten in your life, you should get one. But probably don't go looking in a chat room.

The Ministry of Help

The first time someone offered to help me in a time of need, I wasn't really sure what to do. People had been bringing meals after the loss of my baby, but they would leave. They didn't stick around and visit. This gal stayed. She came in, set up the food and then said, "Can I help you with anything else?" I didn't know what to say. So she grabbed my broom and swept the floor. She's a wise person who knows something about suffering that I hadn't learned yet.
I've learned it since then. Now, ten years after that little incident, I've been the recipient of every kind of help. When our daughter got burned and we spent a month in and out of the hospital and rehab, I had to learn to say "Yes" to all of the offers for help. It wasn't just because I genuinely needed the help. It was also because the people helping needed to help. It wasn't always the kind of help I wanted. It wasn't always beautiful and it didn't always get done my way. But I learned a lot through it and built some really good relationships because of it. As an expert in "life just turned upside down", I'm qualified to say it now. When you're struggling through something, and someone offers to help you, JUST ACCEPT IT.

It Fulfills the Law of Christ

When a crisis hits, everyone wants to do something. Most of us can't do anything. You've been there, empty-handed, wishing you could do more for your suffering friend. You bring a meal, maybe, but there just isn't an opportunity to do much else.
When the tables are turned and you're the one in the crisis, you for some reason feel like it's imposing to accept help from people. Help that they offered. Help that they wanted to give to you to ease your burden (and theirs). Culture feeds us a lie that if we can handle it, then we should. But here's the thing. We shouldn't. The Bible says to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. So allowing someone to bear your burden, whatever it might be, you're actually fulfilling the law of Christ. And, you're letting someone else fulfill His law too. I think what it means, when you look at Galatians 6, is that that helping one another is a reflection of the way Christ came and helped us in our helplessness. So, conversely, when you refuse to accept help, you're depriving someone of the opportunity to fulfill the law of Christ. Is that a big deal? I don't know. It sounds like one. And it says in the same passage that as we have opportunity, let us do good to others. Allowing help is giving a person a chance to obey God's word.

The Indisputable Comfort of the Gospel 

2 Corinthians talks about how we experience the comfort of Christ and because of that we are able to comfort others. Accepting comfort is difficult, but we've all accepted the comfort of Christ. For me in some of the hardest times, that comfort has come through people who have poured out their prayers and thoughts to me, shared their gifts, and carried hope for me. God's comfort is an inextinguishable light in a dark world. People notice when it's given and shared, regardless of what god they're worshiping. There is power in God's comfort, in the fact that He suffered in his life on earth to take away our sin, and He understands our suffering. It's powerful because it's the truth of the gospel. He comforts us so we might comfort others! We should not withhold it and we most certainly should not inhibit others from giving it. You know why Jesus said "They'll know you are my disciples by your love for one another?" If you didn't before now, you hopefully have drawn your own conclusions. If you aren't letting people have the chance to demonstrate His love to you, you're missing a great blessing.

Doing The Hard Thing Builds a Stronger Community

I'm not sure what it is about us that makes us chafe at accepting help. I guess it isn't easy to admit that you'd rather not do everything on your own, that you're inadequate and you can't handle it all. Maybe you don't want people to know that sometimes your house gets messy or you're too tired to take care of your kids so you've been watching Netflix for six hours. But when you accept the truth, you are identifying with the human condition. We're all inadequate. We all fail. We all have fallen short of perfection in God's eyes. Really we all need help. So it's pride that keeps us from accepting the gift others wish to give to us, and it's pride that's somehow telling God you don't need the help He sent to you through that person.

On the other end, it is also just as difficult to offer help. While signing up to drop off a meal is most often the first an easiest way to help someone in crisis, there is so much more you can do. If you know how. It involves time. It involves persistence. It involves one of my least favorite words in English: Gumption. It requires creativity. Most of all, it requires that you listen. To the Holy Spirit and to the person you're offering to help. With all of that, it also often involves a little bit of wisdom for how to handle a situation.

I think Americans are afraid of suffering. We spend so much time making our lives easy and comfortable that when someone is in a position that isn't comfortable, we don't know what to do with it. We aren't really quite sure how to embrace the ick and BE with a person. But that's just what they need. That's what bearing someone's burden looks like. It's walking into the hospital room and seeing open wounds that aren't healing. It's singing to a baby while mom goes and cries alone in the bathroom. It's stepping around clutter in your friend's house to get to the kitchen and washing their dishes. It's calling on dark nights when you know they're alone and tempted to give up. It is ugly and it's beautiful, it's tragic and trivial, it's faithfulness and failing all wrapped together. What you get when you come out the other end is someone who knows you for who you are, who's seen you at your worst and who you know hasn't decided to give up after that.

My friend Robin showed up during our second round at the hospital. She'd been praying and following my caringbridge all year. The second time back was just as hard as the first time. I'd just had a baby by cesarean three weeks prior, and so I was juggling nursing, caring for a baby, and nursing the post-surgery issues with the older sister. Husband was trying to get his hours in at work so I was alone most of the day. I was well past the "I can do this" and the pride of being able to juggle everything. I knew better. I asked for help from basically everyone I knew, and several women in the church stepped up. Women who, up until then, had been in the periphery of my life. Older ladies who knew my parents or knew me through mutual friends. Robin had spent a large portion of her life at the same hospital twenty years ago with her oldest son. She knew some of the struggles I was having, and she showed up. She came all of the days she could, held the baby, read books to sister, took sister to the hospital activities for kids. Prayed for me. Listened. Waited while I cried and gave hugs when I needed them. There were some others. The pastor's wife, who's got her own string of medical issues and has suffered at the hospital. She brought me eggs and showed me how to microwave them. She held the baby and smiled cheerfully for me. Another mom came to my house during recovery time and let me nap. Others cleaned for me. My point is, these were women who I didn't know very well at the time. And they're women who, since then, have made themselves available for my questions and prayers. I know they care about me. They built a protective wall around my heart during hard, hard times without ever expecting anything in return. They were Jesus' love poured out on me and my family, and that love carried me when I was too weak to ask for it.

That is knowing each other in suffering. That is building a community that doesn't splinter and dissolve when things get hard. It's when things get hard that we need each other. So don't give up. Don't push your people away when things are hard for you. Embrace their help. Even if it isn't the kind of help you actually need. you might find out it actually was what you needed. Or, they might find out what kind of help you actually need and provide it for you. Let your friends and acquaintances receive the blessings bestowed by bearing your burdens. Let them suffer along side of you. You'll all be better off for it in the end.