{"id":41499,"date":"2015-03-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/we-werent-meant-to-suffer-alone\/"},"modified":"2015-03-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-03-23T00:00:00","slug":"we-werent-meant-to-suffer-alone","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/we-werent-meant-to-suffer-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"We Weren&#8217;t Meant to Suffer Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In her funny, off-beat memoir, journalist and writer Heather Havrilesky reminds us how community (whether in a family or a church family) implies carrying one another&#39;s burdens. Havrilesky writes:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>If I get sick or lose my mind, I&#39;ll ask my husband or my kids or my friends to rise to the occasion and come to my aid. And they&#39;d better come through for me, [darn] it! I dried your tears and paid too much for replicas of lost teddy bears on eBay. I took care of cats and plants and talked you through home purchases and career dilemmas and bad breakups. &hellip;<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>I&#39;ll continue to be there, as long as I can be. But someday, you might have to come to my rescue. Brace yourselves, because it won&#39;t be pretty. Isn&#39;t that what love and friendship are really about?<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>We weren&#39;t meant to suffer alone! We weren&#39;t meant to &hellip; escape the indignity and frustration of asking for help, for needing help, from someone who might not always enjoy giving it, someone who gets on our nerves, who has never made much sense to us, someone whom we break down and bicker with occasionally. We were meant to lean on each other, as messy and imperfect as that can be, to be capable when we can, and to allow the world to take care of us when we can&#39;t. It won&#39;t be <em>all<\/em> bad. Or it will be. But at least we&#39;ll have each other.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3511,3531,3601,3640,3644,3851,3960,3961,4019,4021,4425,4495,4496,4497,4819,5003,5255],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-41499","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-body-of-christ","tax_ctp_tags-burdens","tax_ctp_tags-church","tax_ctp_tags-commitment","tax_ctp_tags-community","tax_ctp_tags-elderly","tax_ctp_tags-family","tax_ctp_tags-family-ministry","tax_ctp_tags-friend","tax_ctp_tags-friendship","tax_ctp_tags-marriage","tax_ctp_tags-mothers-day","tax_ctp_tags-motherhood","tax_ctp_tags-mothers","tax_ctp_tags-respect-for-old-age","tax_ctp_tags-small-groups","tax_ctp_tags-vows"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>We Weren&#039;t Meant to Suffer Alone - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/we-werent-meant-to-suffer-alone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"We Weren&#039;t Meant to Suffer Alone - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In her funny, off-beat memoir, journalist and writer Heather Havrilesky reminds us how community (whether in a family or a church family) implies carrying one another&#039;s burdens. 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