I’m utterly convinced that the kindest words we can ever utter to each other are “me too.”


“I love you” is nice, and compliments are dandy.


But “me too” enters a whole other ballgame, and one that makes us not feel so alone in this big, big world.


One of the worst feelings I know is feeling crazy—your fears so big, so uncontrollable, and so messy that you don’t want to let anyone know what’s going on in your head and your heart.


You can’t imagine that anyone would still love you if they knew the depth of the gunk that was sloshing around on your insides. And you can’t even imagine, not for a second, that anyone else might feel that way too.


These feelings, these emotions, these situations in our lives make us feel ashamed and messed up and thoroughly beyond repair.


But the worst is the isolation. Isolation is always the worst.


Because not only are we stuck with these messy, gunky feelings, but we’re in them alone—no one is there to offer us a hand, or to throw us a rope.


And in the tender moments when we finally come clean about the emotional mud we’re slopping around in, the last words we ever expect to hear are “me too.”


We expect condemnation certainly, at least a look of disgust if the person is too kind to say anything out loud. We expect people to scoot away from us at the table, or look away quickly so they don’t lock eyes with someone like us.


But we never ever expect to hear “me too.”


“Me too” is the magic phrase that throws some light into our hole, a rope into our pit. It’s the phrase that hands us a new set of clothes and a fluffy, warm towel. It’s a phrase that renews and comforts in a way that nothing else can.


Because it tells us that we're in this together.


The most isolating times for me are when I am going through something that seems too crazy or absurd to be common. I worry that it’s not normal, that I might be the only one to ever have done something so dumb, or the only one to struggle with something so messy.


But “me too” tells me that I’m not crazy, that I’m not an outcast deserving of the shame and condemnation I’m heaping upon myself.


And most of all it tells me that I’m just not alone.


“Me too” is a bold phrase. It’s dangerous, really. It is an opening up of ourselves in the deepest way—a removing of the mask, a wiping off of the makeup.


It strips us of our pride completely, and gives over the upper hand.


But it’s the phrase of true love—of the kind of love that is self-sacrificing—sacrificing our pride and our need to look good for the sake of someone who desperately needs a hand.


And that’s what we’re offering with a “me too.”


We’re offering a hand or a rope or a ladder. We’re offering a step up, a ray of sunshine, a beacon of hope.


“Me too,” begins a story of triumph over that very thing we never thought we’d overcome.


And it’s the beginning of a story about a God who is the master of getting people out of pits and washing them clean.


So try saying it—today, tomorrow, and maybe even the day after.


“Me too.”