Bandaids, Peroxide, and Bearing One Another’s Burdens

My best friend and I were having a conversation about bandaids and peroxide. Not because either of us spends much time thinking about first aid kits, but because somewhere in the middle of talking about life, healing, and survival, those became the metaphors that made the most sense.

As we spoke about our various life experiences, the stark contrast in where we are in our individual journeys, and the threads that continue to hold our friendship together, I began expressing to her how important the depth of our friendship has been to me. Because my best friend has been a sounding board through so many of life’s moments, she has developed a way of helping me navigate challenges with both an outside perspective and an intimate understanding of what support would actually land well. Our friendship has often been a steadying presence in the midst of difficult seasons. 

Though our life experiences differ widely, we have continued cultivating a relationship that creates fertile ground for reflection, emotional care, and healing. I am deeply grateful not only for her friendship, but for the ways I have been able to learn from her life experiences and borrow wisdom without enduring the pain that ger that wisdom. Often, simply sitting with her in the discomfort of my life has done more for me than any clinical setting could. 

This idea has stayed with me throughout the span of our fifteen-year friendship, and during this particular conversation, I finally said it outloud.

“Wow,” she said, “I never thought about it like that. I didn’t know if you had bandaids, i could use them, or if I had peroxide, you would be open to using it.”

That conversation stayed with me long after it ended.

I have grown to understand, through relationships like these and others, that burdens feel lighter when experienced and expressed within trusted community. Relationships open pathways to shared wisdom, mutual support, and resilience. We often borrow stability from trusted relationships before we can consistently generate it internally ourselves. These relationships do more than provide comfort. They function as protective factors against loneliness, despair, and emotional isolation.

I have long questioned how the Church engages in community. I ask this not from a place of criticism, but from a deep love for the church and a desire to see it become an even greater place of healing, security, and steadiness in the face of a dysregulating world.

I often wonder if we are cultivating relational community in ways that truly transform the mind and open pathways toward healing. In other words, are we creating communities where people can become bandaids and peroxide for one another?

The mere fact that we are human means that we will suffer. We will endure hardship of the mind, body, and soul. Building resilience in the face of hardship, suffering, and trauma requires hope, opportunities to experience the goodness of life in new ways, spaces to practice new skills, and environments that feel healthy and nurturing. The Church sits at the intersection of each of these components. But perhaps the most influential factor is the presence of relationships that feel safe, healthy, and nurturing within community. Relationships have the power to shift neural pathways and deepen one’s capacity to engage in a relationship with Christ.

How is the Church responding to pain? Are we remaining present relationally? Are we offering advice without accompaniment through difficult moments? Are we expecting healing to be an individual journey?

What was quietly present in the way my best friend approached our relationship was that she bore my burdens. And that is what I am challenging the Church to do: to truly bear the burdens of the people we encounter on Sunday mornings.

Because bearing one another’s burdens is not rescuing people or removing agency and responsibility.

It is creating relationships where people no longer have to suffer alone. Burden-bearing is not the responsibility of some outside agency or office disconnected from the church. It is part of the responsibility and calling of those who practice the Christian faith. It is living, doing, and being the Gospel (Galatians 6:2-3).  

The work of burden-bearning – What I often refer to as trauma-informed care- is not reserved for clinicians, counselors, or practitioners. In churches striving to become more healthy communities, it becomes a part of the culture itself. Trauma-informed ministry is fundamentally about how humans relate to one another within Christian community. It is present in the quiet moments of church life.

It is for the friends sitting together in worship on Sunday morning. For the hospitality team pouring cups of coffee or cocoa between services. It is for the ministry leaders teaching 9 am Sunday school before the 11 o’clock service begins. It is tucked into evenings at a small group leader’s home, where people break bread together before Bible study and slowly learn they do not have to carry life alone.

This is why I encourage churches at every level- from leadership to new membership- to become trauma-informed. Because the Church has the opportunity to become more than a place people attend. It can become a place where people experience felt safety, connection, and shared burden-bearing in practice.

In my work with churches and faith-based organizations building peer-support programs, relationships have consistently proven to be a vehicle for resilience and growth in the face of life’s most challenging moments. People do more than learn from shared experiences.

In consistent relationships where trust can develop over time, they often begin reconnecting with parts of themselves that survival once forced them to disconnect from. 

Over time, I have watched people rediscover hope, rebuild trust, and experience deeper connection with others and with God through communities willing to walk alongside them with presence, humility, and care. This is part of what liberation can look like in trauma-informed ministry – not simply freedom from pain, but freedom from isolation.

The interesting thing about bandaids and peroxide is that they each serve different functions in the healing process, yet they often work together. I think the same can be true within healthy community. 

It has always been easy for me to sit with my best friend’s pain today because I know I may need her to sit with mine tomorrow. That mutual exchange of care, support, wisdom, and presence has been deeply transformative in my life.

Maybe healthy community is not always about having the perfect answer. Maybe sometimes it is simply knowing someone is willing to sit beside you long enough to remind you that healing was never meant to happen alone. That there is goodness running after you within the fabric of relationships.

Aminah Vargas Harris Ministry Consultant, Speaker, Coach

Aminah Vargas-Harris, MSSA, LSW, is a trauma-informed consultant, coach, and speaker specializing in the integration of faith and neuroscience. She partners with churches, nonprofits, and community organizations to develop systems of care that foster resilience, deepen connection, and support sustainable transformation. Her work equips leaders to move beyond awareness into practical, trauma-informed implementation that strengthens both people and the communities they serve.