I searched and prayed how to compose a beautiful Mother’s Day blog post and earlier this week was sure it would be a loving letter celebrating my amazing mom. But a burden was laid on my heart, one I’ve never spoken of and that is speak of forgotten. Those who this holiday is a source of deep pain and loneliness for many reasons.

A part of the journey the Lord has weaved into my life is being aware and living out Romans 12:15, Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

In the first part, rejoice with those rejoice–we as humans sure love to live out that verse and we find it pretty easy and almost fun to always be rejoicing with others.

But this verse isn’t just made up of the first 5 words, the 5 words that follow often get neglected —weep with those who weep.

I think we don’t mourn well with others because sitting in pain with others makes us feel really uncomfortable,

what do we say?

How do we act?

And if I can’t fix it, then I am of no help… so I will move on.

For many of us, If we can’t fix the problem we flee from uncomfortable to comfortable situations real fast. Being uncomfortable makes us squirm inside our bodies and our palms get all clammy.  Unless we are intentional with our lives by asking the Spirit to guide us and help us be in those messy parts of pain with others, we, in our flesh will never be able to truly live out weep with those who weep.

Weeping with those who weep, can be so simple, yet so uncomfortable.

Sometime the simplicity of  being present with a listening ear, offering your heart, your life, or your time is  really hard to be intentional about. Take a moment and think, do you naturally want to jump on in and share that hardship with your friends or family in the story they find themselves in? Most likely the answer is no. Therefore we must be live and BE intentional.

Please know my heart, this blog post isn’t about drawing attention to myself as to find pity– it’s actually about the many many others who sit silent and feel alone this weekend and my heart deeply aches for them. Most likely you don’t know who they are, why, because I used to be one of them, invisible and silent.  Deep in the closet I hid my silent struggle and story from everyone around me because everyday I saw with my own eyes the reality… people only want to celebrate with others joyful events, but very few are bold and selfless enough to uncomfortably join you in their pit and cry.

Who would naturally volunteer to walk over and slide down a muddy, messy pit to experience someone else’s pain and misery? And that’s the point–in our flesh we don’t…we run over to exciting festive parties hooting and hollering while deep in the dark pit, all alone, sits quietly and patiently those journeying through hard stuff. Don’t get me wrong, all of us, even those with hard stuff should be celebrating together, but far too often those in the pit painstakingly hear the joyful parties overhead and are so weary from always rejoicing with others that they wonder will anyone ever come join their trek of their story.

I know this story because one celebration or baby shower party after another, I’ve seen people walk away in all their happiness and rejoicing, carrying on in their lives, never stopping to look back at those of us standing back covered in dirt, disheveled in pain, and tears lining their faces.

A friend recently sat with me, 4 weeks from delivering her 2nd miracle baby and in all her joy and exuberance offered up a pair of goggles… to see things through my lens. Her intentional sacrifice and love to sit with me and hear my journey encouraged me because she offered an abundance of love. We celebrated her joys together and then we walked through the uglier side of life together.

Her friendship has become a God written story that has blessed my life immensely. She shared this video with me when I first met her and as I was writing this blog post today and my words were forming I felt like Shauna articulated it so much better than my measly few words strung together.

I long to see a beautiful story of the body of Christ,  truly getting uncomfortable with one another, sharing in the joys and sorrows of life together and leaving no one alone & ostracized. God loves each one of us, lets be a picture of his tangible love—being the hands and feet of Jesus, in the good times and the bad.