Within the Old French etymology of the word “encourage” we find the words en meaning “put in, to make” and corage meaning “heart, inner strength.” Even deeper into corage we see in the Latin, the words cor meaning “heart” and agere meaning “to lead.” So altogether, the word encourage in the most literal sense means “to make a heart lead” or “to enable someone to lead or act with heart and inner strength.” In this life we all need encouragement. We need people to come alongside us, hold us up when we are weary, and sometimes, carry us when we cannot hold ourselves up.
A couple years ago, a quotation from a Theodore Roosevelt speech known as The Man in the Arena carved itself into my heart:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
I read the quotation in the midst of a long, seemingly dark season where relationships seemed so very hard. Brené Brown refers to it as “braving the wilderness” and while I didn’t have a name for it then, Joel and I had, in conviction and faith, walked away from almost all that was seemingly comfortable and known to us. Looking back we would do it all over again, but when I read the words “to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood,” I realized I was face down in the middle of arena. I had such confidence that I was where I was meant to be, but I felt battered, bloody and helplessly alone.
My natural instinct is to pick myself up by my bootstraps, push fear and insecurity deep down, dust myself off, and take a step with the façade of bravery. Just as I was putting on my happy-mask, Joel came to me with the scariest, most unnatural idea ever: let’s ask for help.
Mercifully he had a bit more perspective than I did, and feeling the hope and adrenalin that comes after you’ve climbed a wall, even if you’re lying in dirt on the other side, he realized we both needed true encouragement. We needed heart strength. We needed people in the arena with us to “put in, make, and enable us” to get up.
Joel’s brilliant idea: let’s invite 4 couples who don’t necessary think exactly like us doctrinally, politically, fiscally, or even practically to speak into our lives. Let’s open ourselves up to them and ask them to call us out where there may be blind spots, challenge us where we are comfortable, and commit to helping us grow in all areas of life.
In all honesty, I may have rolled my eyes and muttered *some* words under my breath.
I was beat up, muddy, fairly full of shame, and Joel wanted to open the book and give people a magnifying glass. The last thing I wanted to do more of was grow. Or hurt. Or think about my own pain. Or open myself up to others.
The wilderness had been brutal, the desert had left us parched for truth, yet we trusted that there was something more for us. So in one of the most intimidating moves, we opened our hearts to the possibility of rejection and potential hurt all over again and asked people to enter in, and in all honestly, to help pick us up out of the dirt.
What we discovered were some of the most beautiful souls… who ironically were all already in the arena as well. And there we all were, leaning on one another to get a leg-up to stand. Arm in arm anchoring one another until we could all find strength to get up. We found commonality and camaraderie. We found deeper community than we had even hoped for. We found those willing to en (put in) and give us strength to cor agere (heart lead).
As scary as it can be to open yourself up to other people, or to admit you’re face down in the arena, be the type of people who walk through hard things. Do life in the arena, not on the sidelines unwilling to risk your comfortable seats. Truth, Love, and community are worth fighting for. There will be seasons where you will know the triumph of high achievement, and many more when you may fail while daring greatly. But you will never find the deep joy of relationship we are created for if you stay seated in bolted-down, forward-facing rows where it is easier to mock those in the arena than to have a conversation with someone two seats over.
“When we spend our lives waiting until we’re perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable, we squander our precious time, and we turn our backs on our gifts...Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience.”
Surround yourself with people who are honest about the hard things in life, who are willing to share your burdens, and walk arm in arm in the arena with you.
Get out of your seat, link arms and take the field by storm.
And if you fear no one will run with you, run anyway.
The arena is scattered with other brave souls in need of encouragement. Battle-weary companions willing to bear burdens and celebrate victories along side you.
The community you long for may just be facedown in the dirt needing you to reach your hand out first. They may just need you to put in, so their hearts can lead with strength once again.
“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” Ecclesiastes 4:8-9 ESV