“I have carried you from birth, and from the womb . . . Even to your old age I will be the same, and even to your graying years I will carry you.”  Isaiah 46

My friend Ernie is an avid mountain climber and hiker.  He introduced me to the love of hiking and mountains.  The first trip that I ever took with him was a lesson in how to travel light.  Before setting off on a week-long trek into the back country of the Wind River Range in Wyoming he went through my overstuffed backpack and began discarding items that I had packed, some of which I considered essential—like a book!  It was a lesson in how to travel light, for the more one carried the more difficult the journey.

It’s a life lesson.

What are you carrying?

I wrote that introduction Thursday morning.  It was prompted by that verse from Isaiah that formed the basis for my contemplation that morning.  Later that day I had a consultation (think counseling session) with a client who is the wife of a man who has cognitive impairment.   Caregivers carry a LOT!  They assume the responsibility for bearing the load of life for two people. All of the tasks that had previously been shared between them now fall on their shoulders.  They often come to me for help or even to help them “fix” things, which of course I can’t do.  What I do is listen and give them a safe place to discard some of their burdens, and unload some of their emotional baggage that is weighing them down and wearing them out.

So anyway, this dear woman was unburdening herself, at times pausing to wipe away tears.  One of the questions I always ask is “What support do you have?”  She related how she and her husband had moved to the area to be close to their daughter who was having some difficulties. They had left friends and community when they departed their previous home, and had found themselves bereft of the same in this new place.  One of the few sources of support she had found was in the new church they had been attending.  She spoke of some of the activities and studies she was involved with there, and a few women she had met who might possibly be friends for her.  And then she told of how she gets support from reading the scriptures.  And here’s the good part:  She said that one of the passages that had given her great comfort recently was Isaiah 46, which reassures her that God is carrying her.  I WAS BLOWN AWAY!!  She was speaking of the exact same passage that I had read that very same morning!  Truly, the Lord works in mysterious ways!  She went on to relate some of the ways that God has been carrying her throughout her life, and how she has confidence that God will continue to do so during this difficult time. 

Ernie and a Woman.  Both instruments of God, unbeknownst to them.  Both teaching, in different ways, what it means to carry burdens, and to have God carry ours . . . and us.

So I ask again dear friend, what burdens are you carrying?

Who is helping you to carry them?

How is God carrying you? 

“Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is comfortable and My burden is light.” Jesus