Unshakable Momsনমুনা

“I’ll Hold You Up”

I answered the door and she stood there, arms full of my favorite things.

“I wasn’t sure what you might like, so I got one of everything”, as she passed me a sweet tea and a small carton of ice cream. She hugged me tightly about smashing the goodies between us.

“I’m here to do your dishes”, she said. And she sat her bags down, gave my daughter a high five and headed toward my kitchen. I thought she was joking, because who actually does that? I remembered the picture I had posted on Instagram a few hours earlier of my overflowing sink, and baskets of clean, unfolded laundry in the background. It had truly been “one of those weeks”. I had shared it with a winky-face emoji, but I was secretly drowning on the inside. I couldn’t keep up with my kids, my house, the chaos. And there she was, washing my dishes while I stood dumbfounded.

Those people are few and far between, aren’t they? But why? Why are we all not stepping out to lend a hand where we can? And it’s not like she was someone with much freedom - she had three kids of her own at home. It takes a village as they say.

When I think of an unshakable community - the picture of the story in Exodus 17 always comes to mind. Moses was fighting a war, and as long as he held his staff in the air, they were winning. But it became too much for him. That’s when his people, Aaron and Hur, they held his arms up for him. He remained steady because they were there, being his village and helping him stand unshakable through his battle.

Who’s arms can you hold up? It’s incredible the difference we can make by simply showing up. If we all start holding each other up more, we will create an unshakable foundation for our children. Sometimes we just have to step up and say, “I’ll hold you up!”.