Problems?

Over the past few months I have been working, along with family members, to get things set up for my aging mother so that she gets the help she needs. At the same time I have encouraged my older brother, in his mid-fifties, to move out of mom's and get a place of his own. The process was getting bogged down in January when an unexpected boost came along in the form of the police. It turned out that my brother and his twenty-six year old son had been busy growing marijuana in the basement of the house as a side business.

After they spent a night in jail, and a few discussions, it was determined that the process would pick up again, but with a little more follow through. However this meant that a number of other things would need to be taken care of and that the responsibility for it all would fall to me. Now I must confess that at the time I had difficulty seeing this unfolding of events in a positive light. The radio had put it on the airwaves while every newspaper in the region carried the story for people to read. Which, actually, was how I found out about it (a friend read the story and then called me to offer support, only to get a puzzled response, "huh?").

Anyway, as I was saying, I was having a hard time with the whole thing. Especially the idea of it being so public. But when I told people about it an interesting thing began to happen, they told me their stories. Usually with a laugh and a shake of the head, they would say something like, "Let me tell you about my (brother, sister, cousin...)". Over the past two months I've come to this simple conclusion. It seems as though everyone has a story.

One friend told of a cousin who has the same last name as her dad, a prominent citizen of a good sized city. This cousin speaks of his uncle as "my dad" and uses his "dad's" good name to get money and other favors from folks. Which, of course, he never pays back making "dad" look really good. Then again, he did make "dad" proud when he was on Court T.V. for selling the same mobile home to four different senior citizens!

Another person knowingly shook his head when I shared my tale of woe and then said he understood. His father's extended family is something of a mess. As it turns out, two of his cousins have been involved in meth and recently were in a house when someone was murdered. Not that they killed the person, mind you. But being good girls they did want to help their friend dispose of the body. Unfortunately the boys in blue happened to pull their car over as they were being a makeshift hearse. And they were just being considerate. Goodness!

There is a saying that if you are having a rough time just look around. You will find someone who has it worse. I wonder if Paul had that in mind when he wrote to the Galatians "to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ (6:2)"? I like how the New Living Translation puts it: "Share each other's troubles and problems, and in this way obey the law of Christ."

When I began to share the problems I had related to my brother farming in my mother's basement, it did two things for me. One, it gave me a chance to verbally process what was going on (doesn't that sound much more mature than "vent"?). Second, it allowed for others to share with me their experiences. In doing so they encouraged me to gain perspective on my situation. And perspective helped to lighten the burden.

This is why community is so important to the Christian life. We really do need people who will let us "vent" (err, I mean, verbally process) and who will share from their own lives what they have gone through and how God got them through it.

Jesus promised to be with us always, and he is. Through the Holy Spirit but also through his body, the church. Stay connected to Jesus and his people. You never know when you might find something growing in the family closet.