What’s This For?
February 2026
*by guest writer Sue Dvorak
I published a book last year, something I never originally set out to do. It was one of those things, where a curious inner energy and series of unlikely events creates momentum that just pulls you along. You are not driving the bus: you are riding it.
The book is about family, my family, and the role of parenting. I share stories, thoughts, vignettes, and reflections coming out of thirty years of raising my six children together with my husband. It’s not a book about how to parent – it’s about being one. The book is personal, extremely so, yet I hoped my stories would somehow speak to others about their stories. I tried to be honest.
During the months prior to publication, busy with the hacking, paring, and polishing of editing, an important question began to loom. I began considering not what the book was about, but, rather, what it was for. The question that kept on tapping was, “What is the purpose of this book, in the big picture?”
Being a person of faith causes, thankfully, everything in my life to be set beneath this spotlight. What is the spiritual purpose of this thing I am doing? Because there is one, for everything of meaning that we do. We just have to try to figure out what it is, asking God, “What is being offered to me, and asked of me, in this?”
I was weeks into praying about and reflecting on this question. Then one Sunday, from one of the Bible readings at church, four words seemed to actually jump off the page, or perhaps I should say, were identified for me. “Bear with one another.” And there it was.
This simple line captured the meaning I sought. The line, from a New Testament letter, written by a disciple of Jesus to the Colossians (Chapter 3, verse 13), is part of a broader passage wisely encouraging us to bear with one another patiently. My question was answered in only four words. Bear with one another.
God has a way of intriguing us, to pull us along, and this phrase intrigues me. The urging to “bear with one another” holds layers of possible meaning, the words alive for our pondering. And so, bear….what? Bear everything—bear life with one another. Bear each other’s sorrows, and joys. Join with another to bear the weight of a problem. Bear (or bare) our failings and small but satisfying triumphs as a way of accompanying another facing a trial of their own. That is my hope for the meaning, the purpose, of my book: I hope that my parenting stories, the good, the bad, and the ugly, will help other parents bear their stories. I want to offer witness to the idea that every parent bears a variation of the same beautiful story.
When I admit to readers that, years ago, my husband and I nearly lost our minds in a basement toolroom taking turns holding our crying baby through each night of a family visit away, or describe how it felt to have my little girl’s scared eyes locked on mine from her hospital bed in Emergency, or reveal the particular bittersweet, aching sadness I felt watching my teenage son walk away on a university campus where I would leave him, I hope to accompany and “bear with” another parent going through a similar experience.
This dynamic of bearing with one another applies to all facets of life. We recognize that magic moment of hesitation when we decide whether or not to be real with someone. The risk of vulnerability we offer in bearing what is real is a form of caring for the other, and is a comfort, ultimately, to both parties. We see this all the time. A business mentor reveals a past messy failure to a discouraged mentee colleague. An artist points out to an aspiring artist that “flow” comes as a gift, not a guarantee. A student confirms with a fellow student that a particular concept was, indeed, almost impossible to learn. An elderly person describes a time of struggle, and what she learned, to a younger person experiencing struggles of his own.
I read once that the core of Jesus’ program is a willingness to bear other people’s burdens, to help them carry their loads. This is the best of human experience really–a holy connection between people. I wish all of us the joy of experiencing what it means to bear with one another.
Blessings,
Sue
*Sue Dvorak is a guest writer and author of Apparently This Is What Parenting Feels Like. https://apparentlythebook.com Sold on Indigo, Amazon, and by request anywhere books are sold