When Life Feels Too Heavy: What the Ants Can Teach Us

Grow Deep Blog #2
By Dr. Bill Meirose

One morning, I was sitting on our patio watching the ants busily working to gather food and return to the nest.  Each of them appeared to be focused on their own lives and the tasks at hand.  As I watched I noticed one ant that was struggling with a particularly large bread crumb.  Over the course of about 3 minutes the ant would attempt to move the bread crumb and would be able to move it a small distance.  It appeared that the ant would get weary and then attempt to walk away.  The ant would go a very short distance and would turn around and return to the bread crumb to move it a short distance again.  This pattern of moving the crumb, walking away, and returning repeated itself the whole time that I was watching.  As I watched this process go on for a time, eventually another ant came over and joined the first one.  They attempted to move the bread crumb and made a little more progress than the one did alone, but they started the same sequence of trying, walking away, and then returning.  The more I watched a couple of more ants joined the process.  Eventually. 5 different ants joined together and moved the large bread crumb to the nest.

I share this story because it is a life lesson for all of us.  We all come to a place in our lives that we are faced with large burdens and we know that we have to deal with them but just do not have the strength or ability to do so at that time.  We try to walk away but cannot.  Eventually, we can come to the place where we just give up and feel defeated by the burden.  Many individuals who attempt or complete suicide get stuck in this pattern and just give up.  As we look at the example of the ants, we see that as others come along side of us the burden gets a little lighter and can be dealt with.  The original ant did not leave the bread crumb but stayed involved in the solution.  As we go through life we will have many burdens that are too heavy for us to bear alone.  Rather than give up and walk away, follow the example of the ant and call out to your community to help you walk through the burden.

Galatians 6:2 (TLB) states that we should “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ.”  We need to be willing to ask for help when the burdens are too heavy for us and quick to ask if we can be of help to someone who is struggling.

In 2023 there was a suicide every eleven minutes in the United States.  That same year South Dakota experienced 181 deaths by suicide.  Statistics can be very impersonable, but if we look at each one of these people as someone’s child, parent, or loved one the meaning and loss of these individuals takes a different meaning.  The next time that you are in a group of people take time to look around and remember that 1 out of every 20 people has experienced serious suicidal ideations in the past two weeks.  These individuals may not attempt suicide but are living in the hell of depression and lack of hope.

We can pray that God gives us the opportunity to talk with these people.  Many times all they need to know is that someone cares enough to ask.

Pray and be the one.

National Suicide Prevention number is 988.