Word for Word 8/5/26

Everybody is Carrying Something

The cashier smiles and asks if you found everything you needed.

A farmer fills his pick-up with gas before heading back to the field.

A teenager scrolls through her phone while waiting for a friend.

A couple argues about which cereal to buy.

It seems like an ordinary summer day.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned this summer, it’s this: almost everyone you meet is carrying something you cannot see.

I just got back from Alaska, where I cared for my mother-in-law during the last week of her life. Though I work as a hospice chaplain, I had never experienced death from the family’s perspective before. Caring for someone you love at the end of life is not easy. It was so much harder than I imagined.

When I finally came home after the funeral, I expected the whole world to feel different.

Instead, the grocery store was busy. People chatted in the produce aisle. Children begged for ice cream. Someone complained about the price of groceries. The world had simply kept going.

At first, that felt almost unsettling. How could life be so ordinary when mine had been turned upside down?

Then I realized something.

The people around me were probably carrying burdens of their own. The young father loading groceries into his truck might have just received difficult news from his doctor. The woman laughing with a friend may have recently buried her husband. The teenager with earbuds in might be wondering where she fits in the world. The older gentleman who smiled at me may be lonely since losing his spouse.

Most of us are pretty good at looking okay. We smile. We wave. We ask, “How are you?” and answer, “Fine,” because the checkout line isn’t really the place to tell someone our heart is breaking.

But our burdens are there all the same.

The beautiful thing is that kindness is there too.

It shows up in the friend who brings a meal without being asked. In the neighbor who mows your lawn. In the handwritten card that arrives just when you need it. In the person who sits beside you and doesn’t feel the need to fill every silence with words.

I’ve learned that grief doesn’t need to be fixed. It needs to be accompanied.

The Apostle Paul wrote, “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

He didn’t say we have to solve one another’s problems. He didn’t say we need the perfect words. Most of the time there aren’t any.

He simply said, “Bear one another’s burdens.” Walk alongside. Help carry the weight for a while.

You never really know what someone has survived just to stand in front of you today. So the next time you’re standing in line at the grocery store, waiting at the gas pump, or visiting with a neighbor across the fence, remember this:

Everyone you meet is carrying something.

May we be a little gentler with one another. We never know how much a smile, a patient word, or a listening ear might lighten someone else’s load.

Pastor Laura Gentry
Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, Lansing