An Awesome God.

I was talking to a friend today about life.  In the conversation I told her that we all have our cross to bear and though some are heavier than others, some have thorns, and some are on fire, everyone has one.  I thought about my cross and how heavy and awkward it seems today.  I thought about my life, my past and my present.  I looked around my house and at my girls and realized something I had not realized before.  Some of us are carrying crosses that are heavy because of the extra load of burden that we have tied to it.  I am some of us. 

What would happen if we dropped that extra baggage off at the nearest dump?  What would our lives be like then? Think about it.  What if, like we are supposed too, we really gave all of the crap from the past (for lack of a better word and by better I mean shit) to God?  What if we went to His feet, which He has offered as our dump, and dropped off the abuse from our childhood, the stupidity from our adolescence, the plethora of bad decisions we made in college?  What if we dropped off our first marriage, our second and third marriage, our infidelity, our shame, our lies, our deception, our loss....my loss....what would our lives, my life, be like then.  Here I am claiming to be a believer, to trust with all of my heart and soul, to love my Lord with all that I am everyday and yet still I carry a cross with a bag full of loss and sadness tied to it. 

Give your burdens to the LORD, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. Psalm 55:22 NLT

I believe this scripture with all of my heart.  I really do.  Yet daily I struggle with my burdens.  Our Lord does not promise us a life free of struggles, yet scripture tell us to lay our burdens at His feet, pick up our cross, and keep walking on the path He has set before us.  If we could do this, if I could do this, what a difference it would make in my life and the lives of my loved ones.  Learning to let Him have our pain and our shame is at a level of trust that I have yet to master.  Some days I am able to give it all to him and carry my sweet, bulky cross into the day before me.  Other days I wake up barely able to lift my cross that feels as if it is seven feet tall and two hundred pounds.  Those are the days that I do not trust, the days that my sadness and frustrations with my past is stronger than my faith.  Those are the days that I hang my head and cry in both sadness for my loss and shame for my lack of trust in a heavenly Father that has done the unimaginable for me. 

I want so badly to wake up everyday and lug around my sweet, bulky cross that He has given me all the while leaving the past behind me.  I am so blessed that the cross that He gave me to carry has no thorns and is not on fire. I know people who carry one with thorns that is burning from end to end.  People that have been through the unimaginable.  People that have earned the right to just put theirs down and surrender to their nightmares.  These are the people I should be praying for.  Not for myself.  Not for my sad heart or my tired soul.  I should be grateful that my loss is minimal compared to others and my soul is well rested compared to many.  I know that.  I would be lying to you if I said that I remember that everyday, because I don't. 

All of us, whether we are faithful believers or seeking the Lord, have days that we doubt.  We all have days that we fall short of His glory.  Yet it is on those days that His glory shines the brightest.  This, my friends, is what makes my God an awesome God. 

Melanie