carrying our cross... with help

so... my friend Lisa actually gets the credit for this.
she realized the other day, how "not even Jesus, after taking up His cross, carried it by Himself" (Lisa Spriggs, 8 December 2009).
and I realized I had actually never seen that before.
I mean. I know the story. about Simon. and how the Romans pulled him, unsuspecting, from the crowd to help the battered and bruised Son of Man to carry His rough-hewn cross through the crowds filling Jerusalem. I know the story.
but Jesus. needed help. to carry His cross.

but... then I started thinking about it...
and I looked it up in Matthew:
16:24-25: "Then Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone would come after Me, He must deny Himself and take up His cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it.'"
27:33-33: "As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. They came to a place called Golgotha."

so then I really started thinking.
we are relational people, made in the image of God, built on the concept of the Trinity. we are made to reach out to those around, and to feel them reaching to us. we are empty without people.
we are given specific crosses to carry, crosses that bring us to the ground, that weigh on our souls and our bodies and our minds, that distract us from our vocations and our callings. they are often very much our vocations and our callings, yet the Enemy is skillful, distracting us from what God would have us be focused on. they are heavy. we weep as we make our slow, and painful, way up the hill to the Place of the Skull.
yet... we have people in the crowd. we have a Simon of Cyrene. we all need this sort of friend, to fill a gap in our lives when we need it the most. God is so generous to provide us with a Simon.

actually. I have several.

God is so good. when I moved up to Portland, I was scared of a few things.
I was afraid that I'd lose the friends from home. that I'd lose the friends from Jessup. that I'd lose touch with my friends from Italy. I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to make new friends when I got up here.
but God is generous. He is good. and He is faithful.

carrying our cross can be so lonely. it is hard, it is heavy, it is a nightmare on so many levels. but we are simply not meant to go it alone. we need to look out for those around us, to take the opportunities to fill the shoes of Simon. and along with that... we need to be open to the Simon waiting for us. when they step in to help us, we need to accept their grace with grace. love their love with love.

I am so thankful for those who help me carry my cross, who bear my burdens, who sing over my sorrows, who rejoice with me. I hope and pray that I can be there for them, and for others, when they need my shoulder to cry on, to life up their cross and carry it with them.


thanks to you, my friends. thanks to You, my God.