Why We Don't Face Milestones Alone

Bekah and Nick

Bekah, my youngest child and my only daughter, just got married. The yard of our Virginia home, backing up to woodlands in spring, served as a great setting.

She wanted to keep things small. Mainly just her family and her fiancé’s family.

But we were fifty people strong—Bekah’s brothers are married and have kids, and her fiancé (now groom) has several siblings and assorted family members.

So there we were, in our backyard for this momentous event. The gently clouded, mostly sunny, warmer-than-normal weather cooperated. (Whew!)

And each person, sitting in the rented white folding chairs, standing for the service’s solemn parts, was there to support this new couple. Every person there made a difference.

Over the days before and after the wedding we had family members coming and going, as you might expect. Jill made a ton of meals for out-of-town guests. Lots of people converged for Saturday’s momentous event, arriving in dribbles during the days of getting ready and then leaving in trickles after the fact.

At these milestone events we invite others along, don’t we? We want them close.

And at one point as I always do in a wedding, I asked those gathered, “Will all of you witnessing these promises do all in your power to uphold these two persons in their marriage?”

We all said, “We will.” Of course. The big projects in life—marriage included—aren’t meant to be tackled solo.

The early followers of Christ modeled that involved, invested caring, too. We see it in glimpses of the first gatherings of believers in the New Testament. They joined around tables and shared the joy—to say nothing of their goods and possessions.

I think of baptism, too, another event of moment and power—back then, and for us today. For when a family stands up front with a child or an adult stands by the font of my church, we ask a question of the congregation: “Will you who witness these [baptismal] vows do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?”

We, the gathered congregation, say, “We will.”

And not just milestones give us a magnetic pull toward others. So do the detours and disappointments of everyday life. How greatly another person—a group or clan or neighborhood— matters. “Americans are dying of loneliness,” someone wrote recently in some online news venue. If not dying, at least languishing.

When I think about how much support folks find in church (when it’s at its best), I grieve when folks choose not to participate. I understand the decision, especially if they’ve had hurtful, traumatic experiences at the hands of God’s people, as too many have. If they don’t feel safe.

But we aren’t made to make our way through life alone.

The shepherding duties God gladly takes on, he now shares. One of the outcomes of the resurrection of Christ and the Pentecost of the church (just weeks away in the calendar) is how the caring love of God in Christ also gets shouldered by people like you and me.

And shared not just at the milestone events, but also in modest ways. In how we show kindness. How pray for each other. How we are there for one another.

We can give that kind of help, God willing. And we all need it for ourselves—need that cherishing love in the commitments we make and through all the places life takes us.