The American Dream was built on a mind set of individualism and independence.  The idiom ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ is deeply ingrained in the western worldview and taken to a positive outcome has helped our country and culture evolve into an innovative and creative influence in the world. 

The origin of this descriptive phrase isn’t known. It refers of course to boots and the straps that some boots have attached to help the wearer pull them on and to the imagined feat of a lifting oneself off the ground by pulling on one’s bootstraps. This impossible task is supposed to exemplify the achievement in getting out of a difficult situation by our own efforts

There are life circumstances that come along and leave us so weak, broken and devastated  we have no strength left to pull ourselves up or out. Our own efforts are dismantled and truthfully God never meant for us to rely solely on our own striving and limited human understanding in life. We are designed to depend on Him and each other. 

So what do we do when our bootstraps are broken? Who and what do we rely on when our inner resources are drained?

I’ve been told many times in the past months to ‘stay strong’, ‘be strong’. Not helpful. You can’t be strong when you’re not. It’s like asking someone with broken legs to walk on them. Anyone with logical thinking understands this is a crazy expectation. 

These are the times we are to be strong for each other, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ,“ Galatians 6:2.

What is the law of Christ? Jesus made it clear before He went to the cross. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another,” John 13:34. 

Loving each other means there will be times we are called on to carry someone else when they are too weak, too devastated, to carry themselves (even Jesus needed help carrying the cross to Golgotha). 

It means we will need to cover another with our own faith in their time of lack. We step into their situation, however uncomfortable, not to advise, fix or offer theological cliches, scripture quoting or explanations for suffering, but just to be near, to hold up, to ‘weep with those that weep,’ We show up. We climb into the devastation. We stay for the duration.

We are all meant to be boot straps for one another. There may also be times when we need to be someone’s boots, never mind the straps! 

If someone near you is too broken to pull themselves up, pick them up and carry them. Transfuse some of your own presence, strength and faith to another for a while until they are back on their feet.

You never know when you’re own bootstraps might be broken and you’ll need someone to carry you.

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another.” Romans 12:15-16