Aren't we all that little old lady?

It's neat how God teaches us through the little things in life.

Yesterday I helped a little old lady cross the street. Really. I thought that phrase was just figurative for saying you did a good deed, but yesterday it was literal for me. Well, except the little part. She wasn't.

Anyway, I'm driving down El Camino Real (for those of you who don't know, this is a very busy road that goes through the Silicon Valley) and slow down to make a right turn. Two cars in front of me have to swerve around something in the street and keep going. I then realize that it is an old lady in a motorized get-you-around thing (I just now realized I have no idea what those are called. You know, the things you can ride around Wal-mart in, or what older people use to get around. I'm really not trying to be derogatory here). So, she was trying to cross the street, and it looks like the thing quit on her just feet away from the curb. She was crying and panicked, and I'm upset that no one else stopped! I pull up the road, stop to get out, and the lady was yelling at me, explaining her situation like she thought I was mad at her. I try to calm her down, but quickly because we are now both in a pretty dangerous situation!

So here we go, I get behind her to push, knowing that this would be impossible even with her being in a wheeled "vehicle". Like I said, she was not little. She says "no honey, I just need you to stand beside me so I won't fall". She shows me that it's not that the vehicle has broken, but that when she tries to go up the curb and turn, she nearly falls over. She was more scared of falling than being stuck in the street. So I simply stand beside her as she makes the curb. Funny enough, I didn't even do anything.

She's on her way, and I get back in my car, and then comes my lesson for the day.

I could have a whole other blog about how overwhelmed I've been lately with my own circumstances, and with knowing how to help others with theirs (good time to give a plug for a book I'm reading - "Instruments in the Hands of the Redeemer" by Paul Tripp). Just within my close circle of friends we have experienced miscarriages, adultery, and even the tragic death of a beloved spouse. In these times I want so badly to comfort my friends, to have the right words, to do the right things. I worry about saying too little, and especially too much. I'm so hurt for them but know that it's only a taste of what they are experiencing.

The Lord is showing me that it's not that my friends expect me to push them up the hill. I can't. They just need me to stand beside them so they won't fall. We have everything we need in Christ to get through hardships, yet He has created us to bear each others burdens. And it's when we help bear another's that our own suddenly doesn't seem so heavy.