Red Rocks and the Sublime Charity of Being Someone's Burden

How to Let Yourself Need Help, and Help Someone Else in the Process

I recently had the privilege of visiting my brother and his family out in Colorado. We spent some time with his family, visited the museum, and hung out in Breckenridge. On one especially beautiful day, my brother decided he would take all of us on a hike through Red Rocks: me, my wife, my son Caden (age 13), my son Logan (age 8), and my little guy Ryan (age 2).

My guess is you are seeing the problem with that far faster than we did. 

Approximately 13.5 feet into the hike, my sweet little 2 year old lifted his hands and wanted me to carry him. So I did, for miles. We reached the halfway mark of the hike to take a break, and then I glanced over to find my 8 year old son completely out of gas.

My wife grabbed our youngest and flashed me a smile. And I carried my 8 year old son, Logan uphill for the rest of the hike. 

“Are you sure you got this?”

About a minute in, Logan turned to me and asked, “are you sure you got this?”

A few years ago, I went through an unusually brutal season of life. Several months into it, I remember reading a book from Thomas Merton, the famous Catholic theologian and poet. Merton argued that “we must be willing to accept the bitter truth that, in the end, we may have to become a burden to those who love us.” 

As I read those words, I realized this was the exact conundrum I had been facing. I didn’t want to be a burden on someone else. Nobody likes a Debbie Downer. I’d just keep trying to put a mask on and be a Joyful Jeremy.  

The only problem? It hadn’t worked. I was completely falling apart.

But Merton’s next line utterly confused me and completely shattered the ill-conceived and wholly ineffective strategy that I had hitherto employed: “It takes heroic charity and humility to let others sustain us when we are absolutely incapable of sustaining ourselves.” 

It's “heroic charity” to let others help us???

Humility I understood. (It still eluded me, but I understood it.) But…charity? It was a kind act, a generous act to let others support me? 

Of course it was.

There’s a story in the Hebrew Scriptures where, on an abnormally long day, Moses is required to keep his hands raised. The stakes in the story are rather high…as in, life and death stuff.

Now, you are probably aware of this, but holding your hands up gets exhausting after a few minutes, let alone a few hours. Moses eventually sits down, and has a friend on either side hold his hands up for him. 

Life is like that. Real friends are like that. Sometimes you need help keeping your hands up. 

Hey kids, let me tell you about the time…

My guess is that for those two friends, helping hold Moses’ hands up felt like an enormous privilege ---  a day they would never forget, a day they would tell their grandkids about.  A testimony of  how they got to be the ones to stand by Moses when he needed them. 

Maybe you’ve been struggling lately, and maybe part of your struggle is that you have felt all alone because you just don’t want to be a burden to anyone. 

Can I encourage you? Do the courageous thing. Do the generous thing. 

You’ve got this… Because they’ve got you. 

Do you struggle to let others help you?

What is an area in which you feel overwhelmed?

Who can help you in this area?