Lighten Your Load

Grace Notes-column

I haven’t been able to post anything in what seems like forever because of health reasons. But today is the day I start again. Today I’m writing about baggage, emotional and physical. As I was working on the scene cards for my fantasy novel, I realized the first part of the book is about two brothers who have become estranged due to a misunderstanding. This is a theme I am intimately acquainted with. In my life, I have had falling outs with friends and family due to misunderstandings. I’ve seen how that misunderstanding festers, and boils, doing uncountable damage to everyone and everything around the individual.  Unless the Holy Spirit draws the poison out of the soul through trials, and tests the individual’s soul shuts down, and shuts everyone else out.

I’ve been struggling to write this story because I’ve been resisting the Holy Spirit’s leading to let go of my own emotional baggage. The baggage I’ve carried for so long it feels like a comfortable warm blanket. Baggage like lost friendships, loved ones who have died, and the spiritual and physical changes I’ve gone through recently.

Until recently I thought I could stuff all the pain of that baggage away and deal with it another day. But, I wasn’t being fair with God or anybody else, including myself. The only way to let go of emotional and physical baggage is to let go, stop resisting the need to grieve for those losses. So, I’ve given myself permission to cry, to reminisce, to FEEL the pain. And you know what? It hurts, but I feel lighter, happier than I have in a long time.