One of the greatest burdens we carry around with with us, is guilt.  Given to us by others, or taken willingly upon ourselves, it is weight that we cannot easily shed.  I have known people who have lugged this trunk on their backs for decades, carrying it with them wherever they go because they feel it is their lot. 

My own father, a good man in most ways, is one of them.  There is not a soul on earth who will ever know the darkness he kept so deeply buried that he could never give it up.  It affected him without relent.  The greatest tragedy of guilt, is that it cuts us off from love.  Either in giving or receiving, we don’t feel worthy.  So we hide, we deflect, we blame, we drink too much, and ever so slowly, life seeps out of us. 

Jesus, of course, came to change that.  He came to take it all away.  To wash us clean. To make us new.  In the simplest of ways, by just accepting Him, lives are changed.  Hearts of stone are turned to flesh.  The burden is forever lifted.

It’s never too late.

Sometimes I get caught up in only seeing others, people whom I have loved deeply, for their grievous faults and weaknesses. I forget that underneath it all, they are broken and hurting and in need of a Savior.  They think that they can outrun the truth.  They project and spin and lash out, not because I deserve it, but because they know nothing else.  Their burdens are weighing them down.  They are my dad with different names.

I know that this seems like a heavy blog.  It’s hard to write.  But it’s important because I want to frame a truth here that is vital to our peace. 

I bet you know someone too who has hurt you beyond your capacity to understand.  I bet you have carried with you shame and guilt and confusion as to why you feel inadequate or somehow deserving for what has happened.  Maybe you weren’t loved or protected as a child.  Or maybe someone you loved turned their back on you, or worse.  Heartache comes in all different shapes and sizes.    

No matter how old we get, we are just children.  No matter what we wear, what car we drive, where we live, we are all the same.  We live and breathe and yearn for for the same things.  We want to be understood.  We want those we love to love us back.  We want to be known for our honesty, our faithfulness, our sense of right and wrong.  We want to be thought of as kind, and funny, and generous. 

Sometimes things happen along the way, and a lifetime of love gets dumped out and we are left to pick up the pieces of ourselves.  We have a thousand questions and no answers. We somehow have to go forward, when all know we how to do is look back in trying to make sense of it all.

What I am offering here will seem over-simplified and wanting when what you seek is balm for a wounded spirit.  But it is the only truth I know.

Give it to God.  Bring all your dirty laundry, your heartaches, your loved ones, your pain, your disappointments, your guilt, your shame, your unforgiveness, your weariness, your mistakes and bad decisions… Give to Him the things others have done. Your abandonment.  Your need for healing and provision.  Lay it all at His feet.  

Be released from thinking you have to carry any of it.  That’s what He came for.  Be renewed in the freedom He gives you to walk unencumbered.  All of these things — all of them — you can do nothing about.  Only He can.

And He will, if you let Him.

People and circumstances are going to challenge you.  Hurts and difficulties will weigh you down.  God stands with you, His arms wide open to lift these from your shoulders so that you can see that it doesn’t have to be this way.  That a new season, a new life is yours, and it starts by letting it all go.

When we give it to Him, things change.  Things mend. Things happen for our good.

He loves you.  He’s here for you.  He’s able to do immeasurably more than what we can hope for or imagine.  

It’s simple, really.  

Hand it over.  Go on… you know you can do it.

His hands are open and He’s waiting for you to make the first move.

Ready, now.  Give to Him all that weighs you down and watch for your miracles to come.