Burden Bearer.

Just reading these words make my heart feel heavy. I am a burden bearer...I carry everyones burdens on my shoulders until its just too heavy and i can't carry it anymore, and i must...i must let them go because i just can't go on. The thing is no one has asked me to carry them, but I just do...people come to me and confide in me...they think I am strong and instead of turning around and giving it back to the Lord...i carry it far longer than I should. I put too much pressure on myself and when I fail to make something happen or when nothing changes I blame myself. I have turned this gift and this blessing into feelings of resentment.

I am the middle child, I am the peacemaker, the reconciler and the mediator. All these things come naturally to me, yet I have come to resent them.

This past year I have been trying to get out from under these roles that I have placed on myself...these expectations that others have placed on me. I have been trying to recognize this gift that I have been given while being grateful for it rather than resentful....and it is a challenge, let me tell you!

But by the grace of God...i keep on pushing on. I keep on untangling the expectations and the roles...and the lies...and I am slowly getting out from under the entanglement. I am starting to feel a bit more free and my burdens feel a bit more light...praise the lord!

Disclaimer - I wrote this entry AGES ago on my other non married blog and I was reading through some of those entries recently and realized this is something I still struggle with. Peter and I recently watched the film Freedom Writers, and there is a scene within the film where the main character, Erin, is speaking with her father and he says, "Erin you have been blessed with a burden." I loved that statement so much that I wrote it down while Peter chuckled at me...You have been blessed with a burden. Erin had been blessed with a burden for educating kids that others deemed uninterested and incapable.

I have never seen burdens as a blessing...EVER. I have always seen them as an obstacle, an obstacle that holds ME back from being who I want to be, but never have I seen them as a blessing! But the reality is burdens can be a blessing and when you respond to the burdens on your heart you are free to fully love and serve others because you are not denying a part of yourself. When I deny the burdens I have for others, whether they be my family, friends or those without a roof over their heads, I am denying the power of Christ to transform not only my own heart but also the heart and lives of others.