Blessings and Burdens
"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace." Numbers 6:24-26
"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" Matthew 11;28-29
Blessings and Burdens
At church a few weeks ago I was blessed by these words: "Love is kindness". Now I take this blessing forward with me into each day,
the week, into life. The service at church included a time to bless
each other with the gift of the day that God gave each of us along with
the gift of each other.
There
is something important about receiving something in love and in
kindness, but there is also something special in giving it away and
adding to it to make it more that it was originally intended. So how do we
receive the gift of the day and every other gift we notice as such and
give it away, letting go of any attachment we might have had to it. We
grow and the gift grows with us.
Burdens
on the other hand are those things we bear and don't often know how to
let them go feeling that if we try to remove them from our shoulders,
we might end up getting crushed under their weight in the process. We don't notice that they or their weight are doing this anyway, creating cracks in our hearts and souls.
But our burdens or those we carry for others can also be a gift if we
allow the cracks that are formed to be filled with something that
sustains us, such as loving kindness and good hope. When those fill us up and we become vulnerable enough to let others in to help bear the load and we hand those burdens over to God, who was actually carrying them with us all the time. Then as the heaviness lifts, our hearts sense the joy and our spirits soar.
Comments
Post a Comment