When Did Vulnerability Become Offensive?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to actually carry each other’s burdens. Not in the nice, “churchy” way where we say, “I’ll pray for you,” and move on. I mean really see each other, really sit with each other’s stuff.

We constantly hear people preaching the need to bear one another’s burdens, hold each other accountable and be vulnerable with one another… but we don’t.

And I’ve noticed something that’s been bothering me.

Whenever someone opens up about what they’re struggling with, the response they get so often isn’t comfort. It’s comparison. They finally say, “I’m really struggling right now,” and someone fires back with, “And I’m not?!”

Like it’s a contest. Like pain has a scoreboard.

I don’t think people mean to be harsh, I think they’re just tired. Everyone’s carrying something, and maybe it feels unfair to have to make space for someone else’s weight when yours already feels so heavy. Or maybe they desperately desire to, but they just have nothing left to give. But that’s kind of the problem, isn’t it? We’re so focused on surviving our own stuff that we forget what it means to show up for each other.

It’s strange. We tell people to be honest, to open up, to “find community,” but then when they finally feel like they have found the space to do just that, they’re told it’s too much. Too emotional. Too inconvenient.

Why is it so hard to just say, “I hear you” instead of, “Me too, but mine’s worse”?

If one of the disciples had come to Jesus and said, “I’m struggling,” do you really think He would’ve said, “And I’m not?!” No. He would’ve stopped, looked them in the eyes, and said something that made them feel seen even if He was carrying the weight of the world Himself.

And I know… we’re not Jesus. We don’t have His capacity, His patience, or His grace. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the most honest thing we can say sometimes is, “I can’t fix this, but I feel it with you.”

It’s Okay to Not Fix It

We can’t carry everyone’s burdens. We weren’t built for that. And pretending we can just leaves us burnt out and bitter. But that doesn’t mean we have to shut down, either.

There’s this middle space, this uncomfortable, quiet space, where you don’t have a solution, you don’t have a sermon, you just have empathy.

That awkward silence where you want to say something profound but all that comes out is a sigh. Lean in to that. Because people don’t always need you to fix it, they just need to feel like they’re not alone.

Victim Culture and the Other Side

And while we’re on it, I think part of why we struggle with all this is because the pendulum has swung too far the other way, too. There’s a whole “victim culture” now, where pain becomes identity. Where we build a home inside our wounds instead of healing from them. Where the loudest cry gets the microphone.

It’s like everyone’s either performing strength or performing struggle, and neither one feels real. There’s no space left for the in-between where you can be healing and hurting at the same time.

The Middle Ground

Right now, the Church (big c - the universal church) feels split between two cultures of response:

1. The one that says, “Shut up, give it to God, and get over it.”

2. And the one that says, “You’re broken, stay there, and own it.”

The first denies compassion. The second denies transformation.

The first silences pain. The second glorifies it.

Neither is healthy.

Neither looks like Jesus.

Jesus didn’t compete with people’s suffering, He entered it.

He didn’t rank pain, He carried it.

He didn’t glorify wounds, He healed them.

And we are called to do the same for each other. But yet again… we aren’t Jesus. We aren’t perfect. And to be perfectly honest, we really suck at this.

I don’t know exactly how to get there but that’s what I want to find again.

The middle ground.

Grace for the Middle

Here’s what I keep coming back to:

We were never meant to carry everything, fix everything, or be everything for everyone.

Even Jesus, perfect, steady, divine Jesus, stepped away from crowds, prayed alone, and didn’t heal every person He passed. He didn’t fix every story. But He did love people right where they were.

That’s the gospel: not that we’d hold it all together, but that He already does.

Maybe the middle ground we’re searching for isn’t about trying harder. Maybe it’s about surrender. Saying, “I can’t carry your whole story, but I can sit with you in this part of it.” And remembering, “We both need Jesus to hold what we can’t.”

We don’t have to be the strong one all the time.

We don’t have to have the right words or the perfect response.

We don’t have to force healing before we’ve even stopped bleeding.

We can be the friend who listens instead of the one who fixes.

We can be the one who says, “I don’t know what to say, but I’m here.”

We’re not saviors.

We’re the saved.

And because of that, we carry each other’s crosses not to prove our strength, but to point back to His.

The invitation sounds so simple and yet so hard:

Meet one another at the foot of the cross.

That’s the middle ground: the place where all our burdens collide with His mercy.

Where your story and mine find their healing in the same nail-scarred hands.

That’s where true community begins.

Not in comparison. Not in performance. But in the shared confession that we all need Jesus… every day, every breath, and every step of the way.

By Morgan Groenewald

Side note: Thanks Joel for giving me the space to debate and wrestle through this with you the past few days and for allowing me to rant and hash out the final details at 2am when I couldn't sleep. I know I'm a lot, too much sometimes and yet the way you have modelled the patience, capacity and grace of Jesus has inspired me to create this post. You da best!

“I need you oh I need you

Every hour I need you

My one defence, my righteousness

Oh God how I need you” - Matt Maher