I Am Welcomed

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

—Matthew 11:28

I saw her across the church foyer after Sunday services let out. Diane. A single mom with a special needs son. We’d known each other for years, had once attended a Bible study together. But time had passed and circumstances had changed. In a church our size, it was easy to go months without crossing paths. It had been more than two or three years since Diane and I had last caught up.

You should go talk to her, I thought. See how she’s doing.

Instead, I headed toward the children’s department with my husband to pick up our three kids. As I walked, I started planning lunch. Reminded myself to throw in a load of laundry. Again, thoughts of Diane interrupted.

You really should go back and find her. At least say hi.

I should. Yes, I knew I should. But the problem was I didn’t want to. Actually, my heart wanted to, my mind and body did not. Instead, I wanted to get in the car and drive home, maybe crawl into bed for a long Sunday afternoon nap. After navigating my own complicated life, I just didn’t have the strength to step into hers. I was exhausted. So I went home.

I wish I could say this was a one-time scenario. But how many times has the scene repeated itself? In the grocery store. At the park. Dropping off or picking kids up from school. I run into a familiar face, but rather than engage, I walk away. Not every time, but enough. It’s not that I don’t care. I’m just too weary with my burdens to throw out the welcome mat for someone else’s.

It’s too much sometimes, this great sea of human need. Whether it’s in the church foyer or on the ten o’clock news, I see desperation everywhere and hardly know how to touch it. Single mothers. Troubled fathers. Homelessness, human trafficking, abused and unwanted refugees. It’s an ocean of pain on all sides, including my own. All these obvious needs move me, break me, overwhelm me. I feel helpless, knowing my offerings, whatever they may be, would be far too small. So, I admit, sometimes I’d rather look away and walk away.

To welcome another’s suffering means I suffer. And I already have enough of that.

And yet when I went through horrific illness, I had a few faithful friends who stayed close. In spite of my neediness, they pulled up a chair and listened for hours at a time. They let me cry, sleep, even lose my lunch on occasion. They weren’t turned off by my pain. Instead, they helped me carry it. In many ways, it saved me.

Others couldn’t, of course. In spite of sincere hearts and good intentions, their own pain kept them from touching mine. They stayed away, loving me from a distance, but not able to welcome my broken self into their world.

I understand. Really, I do. The wounds of this world are often far beyond an ordinary human capacity to comfort. So where do we turn when we have no place else to go with our pain? Who can be trusted to stick with us when the struggle is great?

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” Jesus said (Matt. 11:28). Jesus had a knack for welcoming the least likely of guests. He didn’t require them to clean up, get it together, finish their education, change their language, or even convert to His “religion.” Instead, He entered their homes, engaged in conversations. With a sweep of His arm, He wiped the requirements from the table, pulled up a chair, and simply said, “Come. Have a seat. With Me.”

He shared dinner with a tax collector no one else wanted near.

He sat down to a lengthy dialogue with a demon-possessed cave dweller.

He chose uneducated fishermen as His closest friends.

He asked a questionable Samaritan woman for a conversation and a drink of water.

A poor widow. A Roman centurion. A cast-out leper. A rejected blind man. I could spend half the day talking about the down-and-outs whom Jesus welcomed. Undeterred by their needs, choices, and circumstances, He leaned in. Engaged. Listened.

And today, if Jesus stood in my church foyer or settled into my living room sofa, He wouldn’t shrink from the wide swath of suffering. He’d do something about it.

The same is true for you, you know. Regardless of your bruised and battered soul, Jesus welcomes you without condition.

Come.

Are you weary? Weighed down by your life’s story? Overwhelmed by unknowns? Come. We’ll carry it together.

This world is not an easy one to weather. We will not always be able to carry another’s burdens along with our own. But when we find our rest in Jesus first, we’ll have far more strength to welcome the Dianes we meet like He does.

The burden of men was so heavy for God Himself that He had to endure the Cross. God verily bore the burden of men in the body of Jesus Christ. But He bore them as a mother carries her child, as a shepherd enfolds the lost lamb that has been found. God took men upon Himself and they weighted Him to the ground, but God remained with them and they with God.

—DIETRICH BONHOEFFER, LIFE TOGETHER