Earlier this year I wrote what seems now to be a ridiculous little IG caption of being full to the brim with goodness and adding in one ounce of hard and exploding. About failing to lay either at His feet in price or sacrifice.
Within two months I was full to the brim with worry, with ugly, and I thought if one more thing came I would collapse. Instead of laying down I added those things to what I can now call my backpack of burdens .
Surely I thought what God was teaching was that it was my job to carry this. This sad day. This broken relationship. That broken promise. This hurt person. Another thing I can't fix but can carry. Toss it in the backpack of burdens. Talk to God about, but not lay it down. Just stuff it back in there to reflect on and pray about at leisure.
Hold on so tightly that my joints ache/ached with tension.
Your burden is light Lord?
I believe every word in your book is truth and think those words are ludicrous.
Apart of the bigger picture I'm not supposed to understand this side of heaven.
But something I grapple with often in this year of heavy backpacks, and tear hidden phone calls.
My littlest is currently obsessed with My Lighthouse by Rend Collective and he sings the words "my lighthouse, my lighthouse' and then makes banjo noises no less than 8000 times per day. This exaggeration is only slight.
Anyway, we listen to the song ALOT and so now Youtube thinks I need to hear all kinds of Rend Collective songs. For our purposes; Counting Every Blessing.
I have also been slowing inching my way through One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.
If you aren't familiar with Ann (Ann like we are besties, gosh) she is one of the great emotive wordsmiths of our time. In this book she counts 1,000 things she is grateful for. Life changed.
A life full of seeing in color for sure.
So I am desperately trying turn my back of burden into my backpack of blessings.
"Counting every blessing, counting every blessings, LETTING GO, and trusting when I cannot see, sure in every season you are good to me. "
Knowing that blessings that I praise for are lighter than the burdens I feel I must slave for. My God came to sets the captives free, why then must I return to a yoke of slavery, a backpack of burdens?
I've spent so much of this year singing worship songs and crying, and desperately reading Psalms and Proverbs. Trying to hold on to the words. Notice I have a problem with holding on?
Instead of holding on to who the words are about:
The blessing-Giver.
The backpack of burdens-taker.
The Great I am.
A big one for me this year; El Roi, the One Who Sees.
He sees my broken parts. In the depths of my despair, He sees. Loves me all the same.
He will redeem this broken year of tear laden phone calls, and bulging backpacks.
His altar is ready for my to lay it down.
To hold on no more.
My husband is alllllways telling me let something or other go. Praise Jesus for a good man whose faith is strong.
Letting it go has never been my strong suit, but the more I see that He sees. It is easier.
The more I see, I start to understand His ludicrous statement of His burden being light.
It has been a good year reminder that the First commandment is the love the Lord your God with all your hear, soul, and strength.
The second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.
I am ok at the second and fail often at the second. God has charted this year out in such a way that two is hard and one feels essential (as it always is) and that too friends is a blessing. It's going on the list.
Letting go,
Ven
Matthew 11:30
My yoke is easy, my burden is light.
Follow you by Ben Rector
