When we pray, we choose to be active participants in someone else’s struggle. When we hit our knees and call out their name – stranger and brother become one. Pain has a way of leveling the playing field.

When we open our eyes to the hurt around us, there are no cool kids and there are no outcasts.  We are all the same. Just trying to make it through this world of brokenness one step at a time, none of us more worthy of saving than another.

The rich man came in need of a healing.

Jesus said to him, “Go, your son will live.” – John 4:50

The blind beggar sat and begged for mercy.

“The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes.” – John 9:11

One man wealthy and one man poor and neither deserving of a touch. None of us deserving yet, in prayer, we are hopeful. Hopeful for healing. Desperate for deliverance. And not just for ourselves, but for each other.

But we must open our eyes to the wounded walking all around us. We must see beyond the my-life-is-one-big-party status updates on Facebook. No one has it all together even if their latest tweet may seem to indicate otherwise. Pain is no respecter of persons. It is an equal opportunity offender. When we realize that we will see people in an entirely new light.

So, let’s be the burden bearers we were called to be for each other.

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. – Galatians 6:2

We can not heal anyone. We can not mend relationships. We are not able to fix many of the world’s problems. But, we can pray to the One is able to do exceedingly above and beyond all that we could think to ask for or imagine. And, in prayer, we lighten another’s load.