I don’t know where I belong…but I can write a song.       –The Lumineers

I sat across the table from my friend a couple of weeks ago, before the holidays kicked into high gear, and we discussed life. And death, unfortunately, since Newtown came up, and she said something that got all up in my face with its simplicity and truth. Something I wish I had thought of myself, but had never articulated, but then that’s why we have each other, isn’t it? To shine light on the words that we can’t find on our own.

She said that maybe we weren’t meant to bear every person’s burden, because people were talking and posting about the tragedy to the point of apparent obsession–ceaseless expressions of despair and hopelessness–and she said it was just too much for her, and I agreed. “Maybe we weren’t meant to carry that much around, ” she said, and continued that when it comes to the people we live in community with, that bearing each other’s burdens may look different and be heavier than it does when it comes to people we don’t know personally–and that’s okay. There are practical expressions of support, and there is emotional weight, and sometimes we focus on one at the expense of the other. And sometimes we just need to send help where we can, then stop and look awhile at those around us, and in doing so, let go of a weight we weren’t meant to bear.

Our talk was freeing, because there is a deep distrusting piece of me anyway that sees all those posts and wonders whether they’re really just about the people writing them. Why dwelling on it seems like the noble thing to do. Why there are so many ways to interpret “no man is an island”. My counselor once reframed my perspective by telling me that often our family is not defined by blood, but by the people with whom we walk in the Gospel every day. Which I love for many reasons, only one of which is that there are plenty of people who are walking in the Gospel and don’t even know it yet. And it just makes sense that we would love family differently than we love strangers. It makes sense that we don’t have to carry the world on our backs if He has it in His hands.

I think we feel better, more accomplished, when we try to carry it ourselves. But there are the moments, more often than not, when we aren’t called upon to bring about drastic change; instead, we are meant to decorate our corner of the world with whatever gift we’ve been given. And in doing so, we set in motion a redemptive process that does change everything.

The Husband and I were gifted a date night by The Mom and Dad, and we went to hear the Atlanta Symphony’s Christmas Pops Concert. As a choir full of school children sang behind the orchestra and familiar holiday tunes filled the air, I felt thankful for music and the people who create it. I can’t play an instrument since my days of piano lessons ended, and I’m not quite as good a singer in reality as I am in my fantasies, and I often rue my lack of talent in this arena: what gifts I might have bestowed upon the world, what beauty is now missing! Then I come back to Earth and decide to leave it to the professionals before me, and I hear the real beauty. And I am changed by what others have done.

Our American Christian church, in all its opulence and tax deductiveness, is excellent at the administration of gifts, at sending people to faraway places and “saving” those they find there. And while God sets no geographical limitations on our generosity, and so neither should we, I wonder how much of our own gifts are lost in our perception of appropriate giving. Could I volunteer more? Could I give more? Yes and yes. And one day as I thought about quantifying my shortcomings, a friend sent an email discussing a joint writing venture and how thankful she was for the redemptive effect it had on her life, how  grateful she is that God can use words to change lives and that this is the specific work he allows us to share. What a gift. Have you thought about what yours is? We all have one, you know.

Because sometimes, often even, he calls us to do. But there are also times when he calls us to be. And redemption can come through both.

At the end of my Christmas Eve spin class (#humblebrag), the kindly sixty-something instructor mentioned the difficulty of the past few weeks and he said, “I thought this song might be fitting.” The strains of a ukelele filled the room, followed by the words to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” I left the gym holding back tears, feeling sad and the urge to cave in to hopelessness, and then I remembered my family waiting at home. How I walk through grace with them daily and messily, how their love gives me the courage to find words and use them. How there’s even one who walks in so much grace that he indulges not just my words, but even my singing every night before I put him to bed.