Wouldn’t it be nice if hurting people were so easy to spot? They know their burdens are heavy, but do others know they are carrying heavy baggage? Maybe we should begin to wear brightly colored stickers on difficult days: HEAVY BURDENS, get help to lift! We are commanded to help each other in this way Galatians 6:2, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” How do we obey this without bright tags to identify those who need help with their burdens?

Ask God to help you have a Christ-like attitude as described in Philippians 2, looking out for others. Take advantage of an opportunity to do something good for someone else, as we are instructed in Galatians 6:10. Bright tags would make it easier to spot hurting people around you, but God has provided a better option. Obey God’s commands for burden lifting, follow His example, and let Him lead you as you help others lift their heavy burdens!

When everything around us seems to be going wrong and our life is crumbling at the foundations, we lose sight of God’s goodness because we are shrouded in the feelings and thoughts created by our circumstances. Personally, I struggle to see God’s goodness when things aren’t going the way I think they should be. Every Christian has this struggle at some point in time. We forget that when we signed up to be a part of God’s army, we really were signing up for an army. There will be battles to fight, giants to face, and dreams to lay aside. God did not promise that life would be easy: He told us to take up our cross and follow him.

Perhaps we need to be reminded that it was not without reason that Isaiah called Jesus “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Follow Him down the path that he took — a path that was paved with pain, suffering, heartache, trial, temptation, frustration, and even death. If we take His path we will surely experience all of these things.

However, if we stick to the path laid out for us in scripture, trusting in Him, God will reveal to us His goodness, His grace, and His love. He promised to pick us up when we fall, to carry us when we have no strength, and to lead us to a glorious finish and a new beginning. Because of His goodness, I can’t wait to pick up my cross again tomorrow, even though it seems heavy. If I am in His will, He will help me carry it.

Over the past few weeks, God has been working deep within me, down where no one can see what’s there – places I didn’t even acknowledge. He has let things from my past resurface so that I can come to the place where I’m so desperate that I will throw myself at his feet, laying down all that I am. I have experienced all over again the pain that comes from losing my mother and sister in a car accident. I have realized that for fifteen years I’ve buried my pain and harbored anger and resentment towards God for what happened. Finally I came to the place where that had been buried so long that there was no more room. My emotions, thoughts, and feelings all exploded and I found myself deep in depression, ready to ship it all in.

Two Fridays ago I planned exactly how I would end it. I thought that I could kill the pain. Then last Sunday God, in his awesome and overwhelming love, began the healing process that I have needed for years. This weekend He spoke into my life through people, continuing the healing process as I poured myself out to him.

If you have stuffed away your feelings and let them fester inside, let them go. Fall on your knees and pour everything out before the God who came to heal; He desires that you live a life of true joy.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” (Luke 4:18)