On a cold and drizzly weekend, I make the ninety-minute drive up to the Tablelands for a three-day retreat.
After the heavy humidity and salty breezes where I live, every time I drive up here, it feels as though I am entering a new world. Ocean views and dense rainforest punctuated with cane fields give way to rolling green hills and fertile volcanic soil. I watch for cows instead of cassowaries. The air is cooler and lighter and, high above me, red-tailed kites soar on the currents. I can see the horizon up here, no longer hemmed in by plants and mountains. I breathe deep.
I have needed this retreat far more than I realized. We’re only halfway through the year, but the first six months have been weighty with both joy and sorrow. And the sorrow is overwhelming me. I need to sit with it in order to make room for the joy.
Siloam Hermitage is nestled away at the back of a property owned by two spiritual directors. Its views look out over the Tablelands and those soaring kites and, just outside my door, is a prayer labyrinth. Winding in and around itself, it reminds me a little of the way the kites move around each other in the sky. After getting settled, the labyrinth is the first thing I do.
At first, I focus only on the grass beneath my feet and following the path before me. I don’t know where to begin in my prayers. I only know that I need God. And that is enough.
It doesn’t take long for the emotions spill out. Ongoing upheaval and a lack of rootedness, the closure of a member care center I believed in and longed for, the resulting outpouring of grief and distress in the community around me, the day-to-day exposure to violence and suffering and pain in the lives of the children I work with, the endless reel of heartrending news reports, my own helplessness in the face of it all—the list goes on. I am weary and aching in this broken world. As I walk, I cry out to God. It feels as though I am cloaked in sadness. A heavy garment wrapped around me, present even in the midst of joy.
I suspect I am not alone in feeling this way from time to time. As women in ministry, we are often called to enter into the pain of others, bringing our unique God-given design to lighten the load. According to the gifts we have been given, we organize meals, transport children, advocate, pray, bear witness, listen, drink endless cups of tea, make sure we have tissues available, and, in a thousand other ways, we care for those around us. As I walk the labyrinth, part of my work is untangling my own pain from that of the many others I have been caring for. And I must ask the question—what does it mean to steward well the pain of another? Particularly when I share in that pain. I cannot enter in and remain untouched. Yet I am convinced that we are called to care. And I cannot believe that my Heavenly Father, who delights in his children and in giving us good gifts, asks us to wear that heavy cloak of sadness.
As I reach the center of the labyrinth, I remember a precious truth. Jesus himself was called the Man of Sorrows. The Son of God also knows what it is to wear a cloak of sadness. I am not alone. His cloak is infinitely heavier than mine, and, unlike me, he is able to bear it. I think of all the stories in the Gospels when Jesus entered into the pain and suffering of others. When he touched the untouchable, when he wept with the women, when he saw what was broken and condemned and he made it whole. Standing in the center, I close my eyes and picture myself undoing the clasps, taking off my cloak, and handing it to him. He takes it gently. Tenderly. Oh, how deeply he cares for these people I care for! As he wraps the cloak around him, he is not weighed down or changed by it. I can entrust others’ pain, and my own, into his hands.
I’m not sure how long I stay in the middle of the labyrinth. But when I finally begin retracing my steps to leave, I feel lighter. I feel as though, in part, I have found an answer to my question. What does it mean to steward the pain of another well? It means to move toward them with love, in whatever way I can. In doing so, I follow the example of Christ. Then, I take the burden I have picked up, and give it to him. And when I do that, when I trust him with the weight of pain, I remember and demonstrate that this is not mine to carry, but that he alone is able to heal and restore and make whole.
Is there a burden Jesus wants to lift from your shoulders, to help you carry?
