When I got married in 1990, my grandparents and aunt and uncle came from Peru for the occasion. My sister and I loved spending time with my grandparents, because they were so different than my American grandparents. They were kind, loving and funny, especially my Abuelita (grandmother in Spanish).
My sister and I remember one particularly funny moment while they were here for my wedding. We were sitting on the couch relaxing one evening with our Abuelita. She was cluching her purse closely to her chest. We asked her what she had in her little old fashioned purse, and she pulled out some sewing supplies, some tissues, and a clean pair of underwear. We looked at her in surprise, but she explained that sometimes when you got older and sneeze, you “leak” and it was always good to have a change of underwear in your purse. We all had a good laugh over that. She was so cute and silly at the same time, she had us laughing so hard. I dearly loved that woman.
If I was asked the same question? That’s easy… NOW. I have my wallet, makeup, phone, bluetooth, gum, pens — the normal stuff. But when my son was little, it wasn’t out of the ordinary to find a broken toy, a ball, a half eaten gooey snack, spilled and crumbled gold fish, a pacifier, a sippy cup, a kids dvd, crayons, rocks, leaves, or even a clean change of his underwear or a diaper. Strange and unusual things, and it took a long time for me to stop carrying strange and unusual things around for my son. They weighed down my purse, and actually, I had to carry a larger purse just so I could accommodate his things, as well as mine. It was heavy, and I’m, sure moms with little ones can relate with a smile, laugh, or a sore shoulder, while moms with older children cackle with laughter at sweet memories, while celebrating their cute and fashionable purses that line their closets.
The same could be asked about our personal burdens. What do you carry around in your personal baggage, or rather… your personal and fashionably adorable bag of burdens? Do you even realize you’re carrying your burdens around? Maybe it’s the fear of the unknown with an aging parent (as in my case), or an unwanted diagnosis that frightens you, or possibly the worry of your child with a sickness or even being accepted into college (or just graduating from high school). Could it be that you’re having marital struggles, or there’s just one element in your marriage that you’re unhappy about, or struggles with finances, loss of a job, ongoing health issues.
Whatever the burden, it can feel heavy, it can weigh us down physically and emotionally, and it can hurt our heart. Sometimes, we don’t know who we can turn to, and other times, we know just who we can go to… but always, we can leave our burdens at the feet of the Lord. I know that sounds silly — leaving our burdens at someones feet, but really, the Lord just wants us to pray to him, share with him what is weighing heavy on our hearts.
Most importantly, he doesn’t want us to just pray. He wants us to leave our worries with him. That sounds silly also, because we keep praying about our needs, without stopping, until we see them resolve. But he wants us to leave the BURDEN part with him… the part that weighs us down and robs us of our peace. Why? Because he loves us. Just like we love our children and never want them to worry about a need — or anything, really.
Knowing that, I hope that today, you can go to the Lord in prayer and empty that bag of burdens you are carrying around and leave your worry in the Lord’s care! And remember — he CARES about you!
“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.”
1 Peter 5:7
According to Giselle 