We're Meant to Carry Each Other

Many times, from conception until death, we're carried by someone else.

As unborn babies, our mothers carry us within their own bodies, nurturing and protecting us. As infants, unable to care for our own needs, we are carried and cared for by family and friends. Someone is there to nurture and protect us. Even after we learn to walk on our own, we sometimes need someone to carry us. We fall off our bike and need mom to carry us into the house and tend to our wounds. We feel sick and too weak to walk on our own, so our fathers bring us up to bed. We learn who we can trust to carry us.

As we get older, being carried by others tends to take on a less physical sense, and more an emotional one. Our friends and loved ones carry us emotionally when our feelings get hurt or when we're grieving. They're there to hug us and nurture us emotionally. They're there when we need advice or a helping hand or just someone to make us smile. Time and again those we trust are called on to carry us.

As we grow old and our minds and bodies begin to show their age, we find ourselves once again needing to be carried by others. We need someone to help us remember where things are and how to do things and which name goes to which face. We need someone to support our weight as our legs begin to fail us. We need someone to hold our hand when the doctor gives us bad news. Even as we age, we still call on those we trust to carry us.

And when our time comes to an end and we're lying in that casket, our loved ones carry us one last time.With heavy hearts, filled with sorrow and love, they hold tight to those casket handles as our bodies are placed in the ground, and our souls are lifted to heaven.

And just as throughout our lives we find ourselves relying on others to carry us, so also will we find ourselves being called on to carry others. God places us in the lives of others to lift them up and carry them in their time of need.


This is what God intended. He created us to lift each other up, just as he lifts us. We are meant to carry each other just as He carries us. I'm sure you've all heard the poem "Footprints in the Sand" (If not, please look it up. Wonderful poem!). This is a poem of God walking with us and carrying us. And so should it be with us towards each other. When we are told to love each other as God loves us, this means to also carry each other and carry each others' burdens.