Road of Lost Burdens

We reach the point where we become so tired of carrying our emotional baggage that we finally let it go.  It's no longer worth it...it never has been.  But that's almost beside the point, because we simply are literally unable to carry it any more.  We become too physically and emotionally exhausted to keep going on with the heavy weight of the baggage in our lives.  We may have made ourselves ill with our insistence on carrying it.  Or lost relationships where our baggage got in the way and kept them from getting close.  We may never have followed that dream because the journey allowed only carry on luggage and not a steamer trunk.  We've worn ourselves out trying to control the past that our baggage represents.  Anchoring ourselves to sorrow, anger, guilt, worry, blame, heartache and more.  Maybe we felt for so long that if we kept it close we could fix it, or protect ourselves from it, or something.  But at last, after jouneying for so long with it, finally it becomes too much, it finally slips from our grasp, falls to the ground with a resonant thud.  And often, we're so tired that a moment later we too drop to the ground.

But with our burdens droppped we begin to recover.  We begin to have energy again...maybe something we haven't had in years.  We feel relief.  We begin to feel a hint of what joy can be like.  We begin to move again.  Lighter than before, less effortlessly than before.  Free at last to be living as we were meant to be living.

We choose to carry our baggage, we can put it down at any time.  But if we choose to keep holding on eventually we will be forced to give it up.  Our emotions, our bodies, and our souls can't endure it forever.  Even for something as insubstantial as emotional baggage at last gravity, or the emotional and spiritual equivalent of it, takes over.  And we must let go.  And that is our blessing.  We are often left ravaged by our insistence of carrying if for so long.  But at least we are blessed to finally let go.

I can feel it slipping from my grasp...the handle of some emotional luggage I've been carrying for so long.  My arm aches and is weary, but I tighten my grip, convinced by fear that I shouldn't let go, although I couldn't even begin to name what is in it.  But I dropped one small suitcase of guilt back there some ways back.  A rucksack of blame tumbled off my shoulder not too long ago.  A mixed sack of judgement and self-pity caused me to trip again and again, so it became one of the first things to go.  A canteen of good intentions, but bracken with a hint of manipulation I chucked moments ago towards the setting sun.

I discovered the name of the road I am on is Aphiemi...Greek for "let go from oneself" and translated from an ancient book into modern language as the word "forgive."