“I’m watching for palm trees,” Isaiah said. He and two of his brothers had been in the backseat of the van for hours as we drove down Illinois, across Kentucky and through Tennessee and Georgia on our way to Florida. I was going to attend a Guideposts workshop in Florida, and my husband Lonny and the boys were going to the ocean to play.
We weren’t far into Florida when we saw them. The first palm trees stood along the interstate in a straight line. They were slender-tall and reached toward a sun-streaked sky.
“The trunks look like lattice!” Samuel said.
“No,” Isaiah said. “It’s like armor. Criss-crossed armor and shields.” My Midwest boys were captivated by the beauty of warm-climate trees.
But I noticed something else: Each tree was encircled by a ring of wooden slats to hold them steady against high winds and strong storms.
As we drove along, I thought, what a beautiful reminder of how we’re called to support one another as believers in Christ. After all, we’re dear to the Lord. Made in His very own image. But like these beautiful trees, even as God’s most prized creation, people sometimes need to withstand trials. We also need to be girded against life’s storms.
And sometimes there are burdens that are too much for a single soul.
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It reminded me of how a few weeks ago, when Lonny and I were working through a tough issue, my sweet friend instinctively sent me a text at midnight to say, “I’m up tonight. I know you are, too. I’m taking over the prayer shift. You go to bed.”
My dear sister in the Lord was willing to shoulder my burden, just as the Lord commands: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ,” Galatians 6:2.
Every single one of us is precious in God’s sight. So when we carry each other’s life-weight, we’re even closer to the heart of Christ.
