She walked awkwardly toward me, listing to one side like a sinking canoe. In her hand she clutched her black leather purse. “It’s so heavy,” she muttered to me. I rushed to relieve her of her load and groaned myself. It felt like she was toting a bowling ball. A man-size one. What on earth?
Mama had Alzheimer’s disease. Her brain was filled with tangles and globs so that she no longer had the ability to think or act or respond in a normal or routine way. One of her new behaviors was to obsessively gather (steal!) items wherever she was and stuff them in her purse. When we were in a store, someone’s home, church, or a hotel, I couldn’t let my unintentional thief out of my sight. Oh my! Lots of explanations and apologies. Thankfully, no arrests!
At home, restless, Mama would randomly pack deodorant, hairspray, books, a jewelry box, old food containers, empty toilet paper rolls, a slipper, and a stuffed animal or two into that stretched out bag. She dragged it around, possessively guarding it, refusing to set it down, and wearing herself out from its weight. And she wouldn’t let me help.
What an unnecessary burden! What a load to carry! Poor Mama!
She needed to lay it down.
I think my sweet Mama isn’t the only one who shoulders pointless loads.
Many of us are burdened by figuring life our on our own. We are saddled with other’s opinions and expectations. We are weighed down with greed, a lust for power and control, someone else’s standard for popularity, the need to be beautiful, wise, or successful. We are bowing under the weight of needing a perfect home, job, car, vacation, wedding, education, resume, children, marriage, friends. We are trudging along bearing sin, fear, guilt and shame.
Stop it! Run to the cross! Lay it down! It really is that simple.
As God’s children, we simply do not have to carry these burdens anymore. As His children, we have been bought with the price of His very own blood. He has clothed our filthiness with His lovely righteousness and declared we are His. We no longer must figure life out on our own, to live for ourselves or others. We are under new management, wise, capable, powerful, gracious and limitless. Our gracious Owner is committed to supplying everything we need and to protecting us and to strengthening us and to giving us real purpose.
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30)
And I am also thinking today of so many of my sweet friends and acquaintances who are shouldering, not unnecessary burdens, but incredibly difficult, legitimate burdens. These loads include the loss of loved ones, diagnoses of frightening illnesses, unreconcilable relational separations, injustice, abuse, uncertain jobs, aging difficulties…I could go on and on.
But my Father reminded me again this morning as I read Psalm 55:22 that we don’t have to carry any burdens alone.
“Cast your burden on the LORD, and He will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.”
Why don’t we get this? Why are we so inclined to wallow under crushing burdens He wants to carry for us? And even more sweet than that precious promise are these words He speaks to us from Isaiah 46:4.
“I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”
He won’t just carry our burdens, real or imagined. He will even carry us.
Won’t you let Him?
Lay it down.
—Eileen Hill
