We Are Holding Our Own

The year was 1975.

In April, Saigon would fall, marking the end of the Vietnam War. Bill Gates and Paul Allen would found Microsoft. Steven Spielberg would unleash Jaws upon the world, Saturday Night Live would premiere on NBC, and Muhammad Ali would defeat Joe Frazier in what would become known as the "Thrilla in Manila." Kodak would develop the world's first digital camera, and for reasons I still don't fully understand, America would become obsessed with the Pet Rock.

It was a year full of events that would leave their mark on history.

But on November 10, 1975, around 7:00 p.m., a tragedy was unfolding in the middle of a historic storm on Lake Superior. One that would claim 29 lives and become one of the most haunting maritime disasters in American history.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a massive, 729-foot freighter. When launched in 1958, she was the largest ship on the Great Lakes, and she remains the largest ever lost in those waters.

On that November evening, she and her crew of 29 men were battling a relentless storm. The ship had sustained damage, developed a list, and lost both of its radar systems. With visibility deteriorating and waves crashing over the deck, Captain Ernest McSorley had slowed the vessel and was relying on another freighter, the Arthur M. Anderson, to help guide them toward the safety of Whitefish Bay.

They were close. Just 17 miles separated them from the shelter of the bay, a distance the massive freighter could have covered in just over an hour at full speed.

Seventeen miles. An hour's journey under better circumstances.

But beneath them lay 530 feet of cold, unforgiving water.

At approximately 7:10 p.m., the Arthur M. Anderson contacted the Fitzgerald. After providing navigational information, the Anderson's captain asked a simple question:

"By the way, Fitzgerald, how are you making out with your problem?"

The answer came back:

"We are holding our own."

Those would be the last words ever heard from the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Within minutes, the enormous freighter disappeared from the Anderson's radar. There was no distress call. No final plea for rescue. The ship and all 29 men aboard were lost to the depths of Lake Superior.

They were holding their own. Until they weren't.

I've thought about those five words.

"We are holding our own."

There's nothing particularly dramatic about them. In fact, they're the kind of words we hear every day. Someone asks how we're doing, and we respond with some variation of the same thing.

"I'm fine."

"Just busy."

"I'm managing."

"Taking it one day at a time."

Or, as several of my friends like to say, "Better than I deserve."

We have a hundred different ways of saying we're okay without actually telling anybody how we're doing.

And the interesting thing is, most of the time, I think we mean it. Or at least we think we do.

We get up, go to work, pay our bills, take care of our families, attend church, and fulfill whatever responsibilities are waiting for us that day. We might be exhausted, frustrated, overwhelmed, or barely keeping everything together, but we're still doing it.

So we must be okay, right?

After all, we're holding our own.

But I wonder how many people around us are fighting storms that nobody else can see. How many people do we pass in the grocery store, sit beside in church, work alongside, or even share a home with who are doing everything in their power just to keep their heads above water?

We've developed a strange relationship with strength.

We admire people who persevere. People who don't quit when things get difficult. People who keep going when everyone else would have thrown in the towel. There is something admirable about perseverance, about having the determination to see something through regardless of what stands in your way.

But somewhere along the way, we've confused being strong with never being allowed to struggle.

We're surrounded by people who seemingly have everything figured out. Their marriages are perfect, their children are perfect, their careers are thriving, and if their social media accounts are to be believed, they've somehow managed to live a life without a single bad day.

Of course, we should know better. We know social media is a carefully curated glimpse into someone's life. But that doesn't stop us from comparing our reality to someone else's presentation of perfection.

I think the problem goes deeper than social media, though.

What happens when you become the person everyone expects to be strong? The person everyone calls when something goes wrong. The person who always has an answer. The person who is supposed to have it all together.

What happens when that person doesn't have it all together anymore? Who do they call?

There are a lot of people who have become so accustomed to being strong for everyone else that they've forgotten they're allowed to need help themselves. Perhaps some have convinced themselves that admitting they're struggling is somehow admitting defeat.

So we don't.

We smile. We show up. We keep working. We keep serving. We keep telling everyone we're fine, and perhaps worst of all, we keep telling ourselves the same thing. Because sometimes it's easier to convince the world that we're okay than to admit, even to ourselves, that we're not.

The Edmund Fitzgerald had spent seventeen years navigating the Great Lakes. She was massive, powerful, and operated by experienced sailors who knew those waters. She was built to carry enormous loads and withstand the difficult conditions of life on the lakes.

But on November 10, 1975, none of that was enough.

Now, I want to be careful here. I don't believe the men aboard the Fitzgerald were foolish or too proud to ask for help. They had communicated their difficulties and were receiving assistance from the Anderson. In fact, 51 years later, we still don't know exactly what caused the ship to sink.

The fact of the matter is that just because you've survived every storm you've faced doesn't mean the next one won't be more than you can handle.

We forget that. We assume that because we've always managed to get through something before, we'll somehow manage to get through whatever comes next. And maybe we will.

But what happens when we don't?

What happens when the marriage starts falling apart? When the money runs out? When the diagnosis comes? When grief settles into your life and refuses to leave? When you wake up one morning and realize you're exhausted in a way that a good night's sleep isn't going to fix?

What happens when you've spent so long telling everyone you're fine that you don't even know how to tell them you're not?

I wish we were better at having those conversations.

And I'm not convinced the church has always helped.

We love talking about faith. We preach about trusting God, standing on His promises, and believing that He'll see us through whatever we're facing. I believe those things. I've preached those things.

But I wonder if sometimes, in our excitement to encourage people to have faith, we inadvertently make them feel like admitting they're struggling is somehow a failure of that faith.

Someone tells us they're overwhelmed, and we tell them to pray about it. Someone tells us they're discouraged, and we remind them that God is in control. Someone tells us they're exhausted, and we encourage them to keep pressing on.

None of those responses are necessarily wrong. But have we actually listened to what they're telling us?

There's a difference between reminding someone that God is with them in the storm and making them feel guilty for admitting they're in one.

Somewhere along the way, we've got to make room for people to be human.

Paul writes in Galatians 6:2, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ."

Why would Paul instruct us to carry one another's burdens if we were never supposed to admit that we had any?

The instruction doesn't say to stand around and cheer someone on while they struggle under a weight they can barely carry. It says to help carry it. That requires the person struggling to be willing to admit they need help, and it requires the rest of us to actually care enough to help.

And I think we struggle with both.

Because here's the other side of this that bothers me.

I'm not sure we always want to know how people are really doing.

How many times have we asked someone, "How are you doing?" while already walking away? Or better yet, how many times have we asked someone how they're doing, silently hoping they'll just say, "I'm good," so we can get on with our day?

We've turned a question that should express genuine concern into little more than a polite greeting.

"Hey, how are you?"

"Good, you?"

"Good."

And off we go. We asked. They answered. Everybody's fine.

Except maybe they aren't.

Maybe the person you just walked past has spent the last week trying to figure out how they're going to pay their mortgage. Maybe they're dealing with something in their marriage that they haven't told a soul about. Maybe they're grieving, maybe they're lonely, or maybe they've reached a point where they genuinely don't know how much longer they can keep going.

And all we heard was, "I'm good."

It seems like every time someone takes their own life, there are people left behind saying some version of the same thing.

"It came out of nowhere."

"We had no idea they were struggling."

"They seemed so happy."

I don't say that to place blame on the people left behind. Sometimes there are no obvious signs. Sometimes people conceal what they're going through so well that even those closest to them have no idea. We cannot assume that every tragedy could have been prevented if somebody had just asked one more question.

But those conversations have made me wonder how many people around us are struggling in silence.

How many people have become experts at putting on a smile? How many people have tried to tell someone they were struggling, only to feel dismissed, misunderstood, or like they were becoming a burden? And how many times have we been so consumed with our own lives that we failed to recognize someone else's struggle?

I don't have a neat answer to those questions. I wish I did.

I do know that we have to do better at being there for one another.

Not in some superficial, "Let me know if you need anything" kind of way that we say because it sounds nice.

I mean actually being there.

Having conversations that last longer than thirty seconds. Calling someone when there's no particular reason to call. Sitting down with someone and being willing to hear an answer that might be uncomfortable.

And when someone finally does tell us they're struggling, perhaps we ought to resist the urge to immediately tell them how to fix it.

I've noticed that we have a tendency to listen to people with the intention of responding rather than understanding. Before they've even finished explaining what they're going through, we've already got three pieces of advice and a Scripture ready to give them.

Sometimes the best thing we can do is close our mouths and listen.

I've been thinking about the story Jesus told of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. It's a story most of us have heard since childhood, but I wonder how often we stop to consider what Jesus was actually challenging.

A lawyer had asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus directed him back to the law, and the man correctly answered that he was to love God with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love his neighbor as himself.

But the man wasn't satisfied with that. Scripture says he was "willing to justify himself," so he asked Jesus another question.

"And who is my neighbour?"

Jesus responded with a story about a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho who fell among thieves. He was stripped, beaten, and left half dead along the road.

A priest came by, saw him, and passed by on the other side. Then came a Levite, who also saw the wounded man and continued on his way.

We aren't told why they didn't stop. Perhaps they were afraid of being attacked themselves. Perhaps they were in a hurry. Perhaps they simply didn't want to become involved in someone else's problems. Scripture doesn't give us their reasoning, and I don't think we need to invent it.

What we do know is that both men saw him, and neither stopped.

Then Jesus introduces the Samaritan.

Luke 10:33 says, "But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him."

I find those three words, "as he journeyed," particularly interesting.

The Samaritan wasn't out looking for someone to rescue. He was traveling. He had somewhere to be, something he was doing, and presumably a destination he intended to reach. He was on the same dangerous road where another man had just been robbed and beaten, and stopping to help certainly wasn't without its own risks.

But he stopped anyway.

He treated the man's wounds, placed him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and cared for him. When he left the next morning, he paid the innkeeper and promised to cover whatever additional expenses were necessary.

He interrupted his journey, gave his time, spent his money, and involved himself in a stranger's problems.

I wonder how many times we've been more concerned with getting where we're going than with the people we encounter along the way.

And I think that's a question worth asking of the church.

We've become very good at talking about getting to heaven. We sing about it, preach about it, and look forward to the day when we will leave behind the troubles of this world. And we should look forward to that day. There is nothing wrong with longing for the promises of God.

But Christianity was never intended to be nothing more than an escape plan.

The calling of the Gospel isn't simply for us to find salvation, survive the troubles of this world, and eventually make it safely to heaven. Jesus commissioned us to go into the world and reach others.

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations," He commanded in Matthew 28:19.

Yet sometimes it seems we've become so concerned with reaching our own destination that we've forgotten the people we're supposed to be reaching along the way.

We cannot claim to love a world we refuse to see. We cannot claim to care about souls while remaining indifferent to the people those souls belong to.

The Samaritan didn't stop to explain to the wounded man why he should have been more careful traveling that road. He didn't stand over him and offer a few encouraging words before continuing on his journey. He went to him.

I wonder how different some of our churches, our communities, and even our families might look if we approached people with that same willingness to be inconvenienced.

Because loving people is inconvenient.

It takes time we don't always feel like we have. It interrupts plans we've already made. It requires us to get involved in situations we might rather avoid, and sometimes it means walking alongside someone through circumstances we have absolutely no power to change.

But if we're only willing to love people when it's convenient, I wonder how much we're really loving them at all.

There's another part of the Edmund Fitzgerald story that I keep coming back to.

After the Fitzgerald disappeared, Captain Jesse Cooper of the Arthur M. Anderson turned his vessel back into the storm to search for survivors. His crew had already endured some of the worst conditions Lake Superior could throw at them, and now they were heading back into those dangerous waters, searching for 29 men with whom they had lost contact.

The Anderson had a destination. Her crew had their own lives to protect, their own families waiting for them, and every reason to want to reach the safety of Whitefish Bay.

But another ship was missing.

They never found anyone. There were no survivors to bring home. The Anderson eventually had to abandon the search.

But they turned back.

I wonder how often we sail past people who are struggling simply because we're too occupied trying to reach the safety of our own harbor.

We aren't going to be able to fix every problem someone is facing. There will be storms we can't calm, circumstances we can't change, and burdens we can't completely remove. We can love people, pray for them, listen to them, and walk alongside them, and there will still be situations where we have no answers.

But surely we can do more than simply sail past one another.

And if you're the one who's struggling, perhaps it's time to stop pretending that everything is fine.

I know that's easier said than done. I know there are expectations, responsibilities, and people depending on you. I know there are things you can't simply walk away from, and admitting you're struggling doesn't suddenly make those things disappear.

But you don't have to pretend that the weight isn't heavy.

It's okay to not be okay. It's okay to admit you're struggling, that you're exhausted, or that you're facing something you don't know how to handle. It's okay to reach out to someone you trust and tell them you need help.

Having faith doesn't mean you're never going to be overwhelmed, and asking for help doesn't mean you've given up.

Perhaps one of the more dangerous things we can do is convince ourselves that because we're still standing, we're doing just fine.

Today marks fifty-one years since the Edmund Fitzgerald disappeared beneath the waves of Lake Superior. Twenty-nine men lost their lives just seventeen miles from the safety of Whitefish Bay.

And the last words anyone heard from them were five words that seem so terribly ordinary.

"We are holding our own."

I wonder how many times those same words, or something very much like them, will be spoken today.

How many people will walk into work, attend a meeting, sit through a church service, or come home to their families and assure everyone that they're fine, while privately wondering how they're going to make it through another day?

How many of them are people we know? People we love? People we're responsible for?

Maybe even the person looking back at us in the mirror.

I don't know.

But perhaps the next time we ask someone how they're doing, we ought to make sure we're actually willing to hear the answer. And perhaps the next time someone asks us, we ought to be willing to give them an honest one.

We have no way of knowing every storm someone else is facing, and we certainly can't carry every burden for them. But we can pay attention, we can listen, and when we encounter someone struggling, we can make the decision not to simply pass them by.

Because somebody, somewhere, is doing everything they can just to hold their own. And they shouldn't have to start sinking before we realize they need us.