Two one-and-a-half inch binders full of profiles and assessment forms. One wide-ruled spiraled notebook. Two textbooks. One ripped Office Depot bag containing several items. One laptop. One cable spiraling and dropping out of control. One purse full of everything from a tube of lip gloss to a water bottle – the usual things. One Bible, because I had not read it in the morning as I normally do. Two phones and a fresh cup of coffee. One carried-over contract in my teeth.
I not only retrieved all those items from my car, I also managed to place my coffee on top of my car while I closed and locked the door and then picked up my bundle of items again with the coordination of a ninja! Not only did I do this with grace, I did it in the rain!
If I looked like I had it all together, I certainly felt like a champ. Until, two steps from the car, I felt it – the unsettling mushy feeling on the sole of my right tennis shoe. Dog poop!
My momentum destroyed, I looked down to assess the situation and the coffee began to spill. A quick maneuver to my lips and I sipped the apostate caffeine from the edge of the cup, forgetting the contract I held within my gritted teeth. Now my coffee mockingly covered the parts of the paper that the rain had not yet violated.
With a feeling of bewilderment and borderline grief, I approached the stairs to my office. Completely dropping all my items to unlock and re-lock the door, because it was Saturday and no one else was there, I made it to my desk in what must have resembled a tornado sweeping through an unsuspecting village.
We all carry things. We carry responsibility like binders and contracts. We carry extras like coffee and lip gloss. We all have heavy loads. At the end of the day, some make it to their end goal in one piece, some are covered in water, and sometimes we carry so much that the entire bundle gets dropped just shy of its intended destination – outside the office door.
It doesn’t matter how well we think we have it together, we eventually need help. We eventually step in poop. Eventually we need each other. And we always need the love, grace and forgiveness of our heavenly Father.
Psalm 55:22 encourages us not to carry our own load but to “Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you; He will never permit the righteous to be moved.” In the same way that God cares for us, He has strategically placed wonderful people in our lives to assist and for us to assist in return – when things get too heavy.
The takeaway from this: Recognize your limitations and trust the people you love enough to reach out to them. You don’t have to carry the whole weight of the world alone.