Dream-Christena-Brown butchered my hair. Apparently, Friday appointments after 2:00 p.m. at her salon were required to consist of significant changes or cancellations were imminent. She first dyed the tips of my hair blonde and then took off nine inches. My original expectation was a tiny trim. Sometimes what we expect to be small turns out to carry more weight than we imagined
As I left the salon, walking with a whole crowd of people I know and love, treacherous things happened that I will choose not to relive, and I immediately woke up with the phrase “know the weight” on my mind. Hello 3:55 a.m. I guess it’s time to be awake.
Know the weight of what?
My first thought went to a movie. In Saving Private Ryan, Captain Miller, with his last breaths, tells Private Ryan, “James, earn this…earn it.” (I will not give a synopsis of this movie because if you’ve not seen it, all you need to do is stop reading this right away and go remedy that.)
Then, in the closing scene, decades later, Private Ryan speaks to his wife while standing in front of Captain Miller’s cross in the Normandy American Cemetery and says, “Tell me I have led a good life.”
Desiring to know if he earned the sacrifice of the men who died in his place.
Well that’s weighty.
Know the weight of what we say; what we do; how we live.
Let us protect what we value. Not just talking about what matters, but living it. Knowing the weight of the sacrifices made for us; the weight of how we choose to use our yes-es and no-es; the weight of the decisions we make. And maybe even attempt to be aware of the weight that others carry.
The dumbbells of life aren’t labeled. We can’t tell if someone is carrying a two pound weight, a 95 pound weight, or a 230 pound weight, but what we know is that everyone is carrying something and our impact matters. There’s something to be said about how we love one another.
The words we choose can build up or tear down.
The expressions on our faces can add weight or take it away.
The actions we choose can bring healing or cause harm.
How magnificent would it be if we aimed to make every place better. Work, school, family, conversations with people wherever we go. With our love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
From afar we may not be able to pinpoint the weight others carry, but the closer we get the more clearly we see.
This new job I have that I mentioned a month or so ago is made up of an extraordinary team. During a training a few weeks back, our director, Mark Balthrop, said “we take a step toward the pain when everyone else is stepping away.”
This reminded me of Jesus.
He stepped towards the lady at the well. He stepped toward the paralytic. He stepped toward the leper. The sick. The broken. The sinner. Toward me and you.
When we step toward pain, sometimes we can’t help but get a bit of pain on us. Sometimes we feel some of the burden. The suffering. The weight of what others are carrying.
And maybe that’s the point. We step closer. We see more clearly. We know the weight. And sometimes, we even choose to bear a bit of it.