Carry Each Other

"Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.  If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.  Each one should test his own actions.  Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load.” Galatians 6:2-5. 

Last Saturday Paxton and I did something very challenging…but VERY rewarding.  And I have to say, with the way I’m feeling today I’m glad it was last weekend because I wouldn’t have made it.  I’m a sneezin’, snot sligin’ fool today!  I’m a bucket of grossness basically.  Yum.  Now please enjoy your dinner.  But anyway, what we did was called a Tough Mudder.  It’s a challenge…not a race, mind you.  It’s between 10 and 13 miles long with physical obstacles along the way that are military based.  You see, this challenge?  All the proceeds go to the Wounded Warrior charity.  Soooooo, kinda makes sense to do actions these heroes would have done while defending us and our great country.  And another great perk of this challenge being in Temecula for this round of it:  why hills of course!  Those glorious, EVER forgiving hills (do you sense a little sarcasm?  Because I AM SO sarcastic right now!).   Despite my sarcastic remarks about the hills, we really did have a good time.  I know, I know!  Everyone is thinking that does NOT sound like fun to me, but it’s really more about the finish.  No, I take that back.  It’s more about the camaraderie.  Coming together-even with people you don’t know but because you are in “it” together.  Working together to overcome some incredibly physically challenging obstacles, others mentally challenging, and some both. 

Some of you have never even met my husband, but he is a Marine.  He is also very brave and really unafraid of much.  I mean, when you are a Marine already, he’s done pretty much everything we did (except one, but I’ll get to that later…SHUDDER!).  Now me on the other hand?  Well, I think I’m pretty brave, particularly for a woman, but there are certain things in this life that just freak me the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks OUT! For example:  snakes.  Don’t even think about putting it on Discovery Channel if those creepers are the feature.  Failure.  I do NOT like to fail…or be beat.  And finally….water.  Scares the crap outta me.  I think it has a lot to do with the trauma of having two mean older brothers who would hold you under, but hey…who’s speculating here?  Now that I’ve established my fears, you can probably guess where this is going.  O yes…there was water on this little trek.  A LOT of water.  Deep water.  Cold water.  Scary, scary water. 

It was probably about mile 4 or 5 after SEVERAL very steep hills, a few obstacles such as climbing over a 15 foot wall 3 times, low crawling on wet mud under shockers, and crawling through tunnels of muck.  It seriously was fun, and funny when you see some huge dude getting’ stuck under a shocker and his butt getting’ buzzed like crazy.  You can’t make that crap up, I’m tellin’ ya!  But now, the fun and games came to a screeching halt.  We came up on the monkey bars…and they were over water.  Gulp.  Now some of you are like, um…it’s monkey bars…seriously?  But friends, these were no standard children’s monkey bars.  These suckers climbed upward to a peak, and then mercilessly went on a downward slope.  But these things were a good 15 feet across.  I was seeing grown, strong, BUFF men drop like flies!  And the women?  I hadn’t seen one cross yet.  O double gulp.  Well, Paxton made it across, but he is an unusual specimen of human being.  Seriously I was proud.  But then I just kept staying on the other side.  I was so stinkin’ terrified!  I would do that little like, ya know, step forward like I was going, then back.  I did that for a good 5 minutes while Paxton coaxed from the other side.  Then finally, I figured, well?  If I fall?  I know he’ll at least jump in after me when I begin to drown to my death.  So I went. 

Something Paxton has always told me to do when doing monkey bars (especially when they are spinning, wet ones) is to grab with one hand, grab with the other, and keep moving.  Don’t do the one handed grab thing and don’t stop.  Or you’re droppin’.  And I prayed: “I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me.”  Over and over again. 

I don’t know if it was fear. 

I don’t know if it was my husband’s calls of encouragement from the edge.

I don’t know if it was the prayers.

But I made it. 

I was shaking.  I was sore.  I was proud.  Paxton was SO proud.  I was the first girl in the group to make it!  I was so shaken I could barely start running again!  But we started jogging and it wasn’t even a half mile and we came to the next one:  climbing a 20 foot wall.  To a teeny, tiny little area with nowhere but down.  Into a huge, freezing pit of water.  O shiza maneliee!  I wanted to skip it.  I was going to skip it. 

“Babe, you can do this!  I’m right here beside you!”  Paxton encouraged, once again.  “I’ll hold your hand, count to 3, and we’ll just do it together!”.  Did I mention I don’t like to fail?  And that includes failing those that I love when we are doing this together! 

So…I began the climb up. 

To try and describe the feeling of fear I felt in that moment when Paxton grabbed my hand is basically impossible.  But I CAN tell you this:  if it weren’t for my husband’s support and encouragement I wouldn’t have done it.  He never made fun of me.  He never told me to give up, but he also said if I was too scared and couldn’t do it…he was still proud of how great I’d done.  But I wanted to do this for myself…and for us.  WE were doing this challenge together. 

So I jumped. 

I won’t say it ended all perfect with me hitting the water and coming up with both hands up in victory.  Quite the contrary.  I went so deep and the water was so friggin’ cold I started freaking out, hyperventilating, and had the breathe knocked out of me from the impact.  Paxton basically had to drag me out of the water huffing, puffing, and near tears.  But I did it.  WE did it together.  We went through something really scary, really hard, and it didn’t even go that well.  But I was so proud. And again…Paxton was more proud of me than he had been even with the monkey bars because I overcame SUCH a huge mental fear. 

This certainly wasn’t the last mental fear I had, and it also wasn’t the last one where sometimes it’s just best to move on around the obstacle.  We were on the last mile and the 3^rd obstacle before that glorious finish line was going out into the lake, dipping your head under water where boards were placed, swimming about 15 feet.  Um….no thank you.  At that point, Paxton even knew encouraging me was a lost cause.  I shivered on the side and waited.  He deftly completed the 2^nd to last obstacle while I faltered and fell on my shoulder.  Splat!  

At this point I was feeling like a steaming pile of crap and my shoulder was throbbing like crazy.  So when we came to the last obstacle (gosh that sounds so beautiful even now), I literally almost started crying.  3 hay bales.  Mud and water beneath them.  And the really big cherry on top?  Electric shockers hanging down throughout the entire area.  A guaranteed shock to occur.  O yippy do dah day! 

Paxton knew he was up for a fight from me when I just stopped and shook my head. 

“Sweetie, there’s the finish line,” he coaxed me like I was a toddler.  “You can do this.” 

“Paxton, I just…I just…” I whimpered back to him.  “I just don’t think I can.”  A man behind me who had just completed the race jumped in, “It’s really not that bad.  Really.”  “Promise?”  I asked unbelievingly.  “Promise.” 

Paxton took my hand in his and squeezed.  “I’ll hold your hand the whole time and we’ll cross the finish line together, babe,” Paxton said to me proudly.  And we were off!

Pop!  POW!  ZING!  Yozzas!  O YES IT DID HURT! 

But not THAT bad.  But what DID hurt was when on that last little hay bale, my husband (that little quick rascal) was just a couple steps ahead of me…and my big fat toe caught that bale.  I went down.  Into the mud.  Where he proceeded to drag me a good 3 feet before he realized I was screaming to STOP!  What a way to end it all! 

Paxton said something to me when we finished.  He said that he was more proud of us as a couple for completing something like this.  “Most couples wouldn’t do this together the way we did,” he said.  “The husband might, or the wife might.  But we did it TOGETHER!  And you did things you were terrified about!”  And I realized something…he was right.  I wouldn’t have done some of those obstacles if it weren’t for him (even if he did have to literally and “mentally” drag me through it sometimes). 

Yes, it was very difficult.  We were both sore…both bumped and bruised up…but we were proud.  And we felt so proud of one another.  And so much closer because we had helped one another and stuck together every, single step we took.  And it made me think about everything we are going through right now with all of my other issues and just life and marriage in general. 

The verse tells us to “carry each other’s burdens.”  Uplift one another.  Encourage.  Sometimes it’s the help of another…the encouragement of someone lifting you up telling you, “You CAN do it!” is the one and only thing that will keep someone afloat…or be that final push they need to conquer their fears. 

Paxton was that for me so often in that challenge and on so many of those obstacles...and in my daily life.  But he also never makes me feel unworthy of the race or guilty if my fears simply overtake me.  Because, just like in life?  Some fears we’re just NOT ready to conquer in THAT moment.  But keep encouraging yourself.  Continue encouraging and uplifting your brothers and sisters.  Because you never know…you might just be that ONE bit that makes all the difference in the world.