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The Balance Beam

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by Hannah Brossard, EM Summer Staff in Portland, ME

Maine Mission Trips

The other day, I was playing at the park with Henry. We played on the monkey bars and swings for a little while, and then decided to walk on the balance beam. He hopped onto the end of the beam, and began to struggle. He started to lose his balance and stumbled off. After falling into the wood chips, he stood up and brushed himself off.

"Alright, Henry, try again" I said.

"I can't do it."

"Yes, you can. Let's try again."

"I can't."

"Yeah, you can. We'll do it together."

I helped him stand back on the end of the beam. He held my hand and walked the beam while I walked in the wood chips alongside him. We walked it hand in hand, back and forth. After he walked the beam, he wanted me to give it a try. I got on and thought that I could balance just fine on my own, but Henry surprised me. He reached out and offered his hand to me. He held my hand and walked the beam alongside me the entire time. We walked the balance beam together as a team.

This little encounter with Henry in the park really struck me. It reminded me how Jesus calls us to interact with the people he places in our lives. Sometimes, we might understand what someone is going through because we have walked a similar path to the one they are walking. Henry knew that I might need a hand to hold because he walked the beam before me. Other times, we may not be able to fully grasp what people are going through. For example, I didn't know what it felt like for Henry to walk the beam for the first time. I walked on wood chips while he walked on the balance beam. We were walking on different surfaces, but we were on the same journey together. Even though our challenges looked different, we moved forward hand in hand together towards our goal of finishing.

This week, I was struck by the magnitude of brokenness and pain that different people in this community are experiencing. I heard Angham, an Iraqi girl, say that she can't play with another child because the child's family is Somalian. I heard about families that are struggling financially, parents who are absent, people who are sick, siblings raising younger siblings, and friends anxiously waiting for their family members to come to America. I saw issues and pain that are far more deeply rooted than something I can help solve in the last three weeks that I'm here.

I talked with girls who are walking paths of insecurity and struggling with self-image, just as I have before. These girls are walking a beam that I know all too well. I am able to hold their hands tightly because I understand how difficult the struggle is. However, I have also talked with friends who are on paths that I can't comprehend. I have talked with new friends who are walking the beam as refugees and immigrants. Personally, I have no idea what it is like to be a refugee or immigrant in America, but that doesn't mean I can't hold their hand and journey with them too.

My encounter with Henry helped me realize that Jesus doesn't always call us to fix everyone's problems, heal their brokenness, and bind up their wounds. He doesn't just call us to fix people. He calls us to LOVE people and journey with them. He calls us to walk the balance beam together.

Jesus lived the greatest example of walking alongside His children. He did life alongside his disciples and the people he encountered. My interaction with Henry reminded me that is what Jesus calls us to do: to share our lives and walk with people in their brokenness and struggles. It's what Jesus does with us. He walks with us in the midst of our struggles, brokenness, pain, and hardships. He walked the beam before us, and He is walking with us still.

Katie Davis said, "Even though I realize that I cannot always mend or meet, I can enter into someone else's pain and sit with them and know. This is Jesus. Not that he apologizes for the hard and the hurt, but that he enters in, He comes with us to the hard places. And so I continue to enter." This is Jesus. This is what he calls us to do. He calls us to enter into someone else's pain, hold their hand, encourage them, pray for them, walk with them and LOVE them. He calls us to share our very selves and travel this journey across the beam hand in hand, just like Henry did with me.


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