Take Time To Care: In hard times

It's amazing to me the turmoil that 2010 has brought into the lives of those around me. I have friends in massive legal battles, friends who might have to move overseas for jobs, friends with relationships ending, friends who are struggling with health concerns, and the list goes on and on and on.

As I was in the shower today (I get a lot of quiet thinking done in there), I thought about how easy it is to be the friend/family member who's there for the person when the crisis happens, but how challenging it is to be the person all the way through the transition.

So many of us show up in the heat of the crisis: we bring food, we answer phone calls, we stop by to say hi, we watch their kids, we say prayers, we cry with them. Unfortunately, after the crisis dies down a little bit and lives get slowly back to normal for everyone else, the person who had the major life change suddenly finds himself alone.

My challenge to myself in taking time to care this week is to make sure I'm there after the crisis dies down. To be there when life continues for that person. To try my best to not let my own life distract me from the adjustments that person is struggling to make in their own life.

How do you make sure to think of others after the crisis, when your own life is back on track but his is forever altered? How do you help sustain them?

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