If your family were to come on hard times, or were beset by a tragedy, or were somehow incapacitated, what would you do? How would function? How would you care for yourself or the others in your family?

I’m asking you, dear Readers, because you need people. You need call-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night friends. You need drop-your-kids-off-at-the-last-minute friends. You need here’s-dinner-and-a-few-bags-of-groceries friends. You need friends with perspective. You need friends who speak the hard-to-hear truth. You need friends who still adore you even when you’re unlovely.

When someone in my community of friends puts out the Bat Signal, more than enough help comes. I have sent out my share of Bat Signals, and I have answered the call of it, as well. Truth be told, I can’t imagine my life without these faithful around me, who believe in the need to help each other.

I’m halfway through the book, The Wonder of Girls, by Michael Gurian. In it Gurian talks about the need for our children to be raised by three families: the nuclear family, the extended family, and meaningful institutions. The extended family includes mentors, counselors, and family friends “who become like grandma or grandpa or aunt or uncle” (page 94). He also includes church communities within the “institution” family, on the condition that our children are bonding with people and elements of church, rather than just attending.

Often, even within the church, we come and we go, and we do it alone. We live far from our extended families and we keep others at arm’s length. We come to church, we sit, and we leave, untouched by potential second and third family members around us.

Mark 2:3-5 says, Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

I think about this man often. Unable to help himself, his friends take over with their superhero strength and faith. They don’t just offer him a ride to the local faith rally and drop him off at the front door – they dig through the roof of a house to get this man to Jesus.

Maybe this man asked for help, and maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was faithful, too, or maybe he was a whiner. The story doesn’t really say, because Jesus saw their faith – the faith of his friends – and his sins were forgiven. Ultimately, in verse 11, he is healed.

I don’t always know how I need help, either, but I have friends who sometimes take over, and I am grateful for them.

So I ask you: Are there people who will answer your Bat Signal? Do you trust in your community enough to put out your own Bat Signal? Are you paying attention to the Bat Signals calling for your help?

Because life is too hard to live alone.

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Photo by zombie.