Step-by-step

Step-by-Step

I spied the two of them leaving the Washington County Courthouse together. They looked to be well into their eighties: he wore a jacket and a soft hat; she was in a simple skirt and blouse, her boxy handbag swinging from the crook of her arm. As they moved toward a short flight of steps leading down to the street, I noticed both of them were limping. She walked as if perhaps she’d had a stroke. He moved with a definite hitch that mirrored hers. I feared what might happen when they attempted their descent, but I needn’t have.

As he approached the first step, he grasped both of her hands firmly in his. Then he planted his good leg below him, and she followed suit with her weaker one, trusting him with her weight. As soon as she was steady, he swung his other leg down and she carefully slid hers to meet his own.

Their movements were perfectly choreographed, and each person knew their part in the dance. They repeated their careful pattern to the bottom of the steps, then shuffled down the sidewalk together arm in arm. Their noontime errand was done, their dance was sweet, and the lesson they taught without knowing it was not lost on me.

We’re all a little hobbled in one way or another. We need each other to get where we’re going. Your calm can bolster my fear. My steady belief can encourage you in your next challenge. Alternating strengths for weaknesses, step-by-step, we all can achieve far more together for our Father—and his Kingdom—than any of us might hope to do alone.

The ease with which these two partners navigated their course gave them away as longtime collaborators. They’d obviously done this before. But most of us are not so at ease with revealing our weaknesses or being helped by another’s strengths. Our world does not celebrate the vulnerability of interdependence. But maybe it should. After all, there is beauty in the quiet dance of compensating flaws—a sweetness to hands grasped in a common task. All that’s required of us is that we let our shortcomings be balanced by another’s help. Step-by-step, side by side, we can make it. Shouldn’t we swallow our pride and try?

Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.

Galatians 6:2, NASB