Yes, sometimes they are way too heavy and we become bent over with the weight of them. I do not pretend to be burden free or have all the answers to these kind of problems. Perhaps it is our children that are giving us problems, maybe a spouse that doesn't love the Lord, or it could be financial problems, what ever the problem, it could become a heavy burden too hard to bear. There are many types of burdens that we tend to gather up and try to carry on our own and they become so heavy that we can't carry them any longer, what do we do?
We are told by many to lay them at the feet of Jesus and He will carry them for us. That is very good advice, but how do we do that? It is not something we can see, or lift up and deposit somewhere, they seem to converge on us without us realizing it and since we can't lift them from our minds and hearts, there has to be a way to get rid of them 'so to speak'. There is a song that says, 'Give them all, give them all, give them all to Jesus'. How do you do that? I wonder how many people have tried to do that and didn't succeed. I have and I have learned so many lessons lately about life, that I am over whelmed with gratitude to God for caring so much for me to allow me to learn these lessons.
I was telling my son yesterday that I feel like a little Job, you know, the man in the Bible that lost everything. Well, I really haven't lost anything important like he did, but I have gone through a series of 'how do I take care of this', it would be such a heavy thing and I didn't know how to find the answer. I discovered a very important issue that God was having with me, it was, ' being forgiving when a wrong was done to me'. First it started with a small thing and I clung to it to try and solve the problem but it didn't work. Some gossip that someone said and didn't really make it right when they were wrong. So then (I am just speaking for God now) God said, I need to teach her to forgive and the little thing didn't work so now I will add something that I know will hurt her and see what she does with that. So the next thing stunned me, it was an act of unkindness that really hurt from someone that I loved, so what do I do with that? I mourned over it for a few days and then I said to myself, I have to forgive them, this thing is way too heavy for me to carry and its been many years since I've been treated in this manner, many, many years so I only knew one way to forgive and that was to ask God to put forgiveness in my heart for this heavy thing that was hanging over me and crushing me down. I begged Him to help me to forgive and that is exactly what He did, He put a forgiveness in my heart that I had never known and a love that did not waiver.
Well, here comes the final blow, well maybe not the final one, but I hope it is. I know if you have kids you will know what this did to me, it blew me away, my thoughts were not good. I thought about this yesterday and God seem to say to me 'remember Job', yes I remember Job, but I'm not Job, 'well, I just want to make sure you know how to forgive, you have learned a great lesson but this one will prove whether you have really learned it or not.
Someone very important to me in their status, told a whole bunch of lies about a child of mine and it was so bad and so untrue that I simply could not take it. It was almost a crime and I was carrying it around like a ball and chain. It hurt really bad, if it had been true, I could have accepted it to some extent, but lies, no way was I going to sit back and let it go, it was the biggest problem among people that I have ever faced. This person was held in high esteem but they picked someone who was wicked in his transactions and with his mouth, as a friend and the friend hated my child and probably me, so he loaded the person down with his lies and this person told them to a couple of my family members as truth and it got back to me. Wow!! What now?
How do you forgive someone like that? I kept mulling this over and over and I kept praying for God to put that forgiveness in my heart for this person and it just didn't work. I wrote them a letter and got it off my heart that way, but ended up getting rid of the letter, so now what do I do, I knew if I confronted them it would be a bad scene and what I really needed before anything was said, was forgiveness and the other day I was put in the presence of this person and I was praying the whole time which was about an hour and the hard feelings left and I had forgiveness. What a relief!! Now I think I can confront them in peace if the opportunity arises and I'm sure it will because they need to learn a lesson too, don't you think? For their salvation sake I believe I can help them now that I have learned how to forgive something that hard to take. It has affected a lot of people and needs to be made right but the best part of the whole thing is that I have learned to forgive again. I don't want to go through that again, the lies involved character, thousands of dollars and so much more and it really weighted me down like I've never felt before.
Was my burden too heavy to bear? Yes, it was, way more than I could handle and way more than God wanted me to try and handle on my own. He has a miraculous way of changing things and the heart is one of His Specialties. So now that I have learned this lesson, can I forgive again if something happens, I so hope so. Unforgiveness is probably the hardest burden for me to bear. I just don't like it at all. I have always been a forgiving person, I thought, until something too heavy to bear was laid upon me and I fell apart, literally fell apart. This was over a period of months.
I am so very thankful that God can lift the heaviest burdens and it is nothing to Him to do it. He is well aware of our hurts and can heal the brokenness that comes from the hurts and we must let Him heal our brokenness before He can heal our bodies and our spiritual lives. He is willing, are we willing to let go of our hurts and live for Him. I hope I am, how about you? Give them all, give them all, give them all to Jesus, He will heal our brokenness and save us as He did Job. Grandma Joan
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