Loaded Down Luggage: Time To Take Drastic Measures

I love spring in Taos. I love Easter. I love buying those infamous pink Peeps, coconut nests with jelly beans, and filling my daughters Easter baskets with random trinkets. Nowadays instead of filling their keepsake baskets with all sorts of surprises, the post office provides me with a priority box that gets filled with fake grass, gift cards and yes, still a chocolate egg or two. Instead of an excited young mom, I’ve become an cautious middle-aged one, always trying to make sure I’m mailing things my daughters can use or need. Their mature practicality has rubbed off on me. Somehow our roles got reversed along the way…Oops.

This year my Mom is visiting for a few weeks and we’re excited to go to church together and do a little exploring. When picking her up from the airport and helping with the heavy luggage, I couldn’t help but wonder about all the things she packed but probably didn’t need to bring. Of course I’m my mother’s daughter and earlier that very morning, I was busy unpacking my own unnecessary belongings after a few days in Texas. The bottom line is this: Dragging around luggage is a pain. What did we do before we had luggage with wheels?! My shoulders hurt just thinking about it.

It’s even more painful when we carry around emotional luggage that we can’t unzip, unpack and forget about. Divorce, hurtful conversations with friends or family, wrong doings at the workplace or traumas that haunt us in the most inappropriate of times, we carry around a lot of…..well…STUFF. Or perhaps we’ve failed to even identify the load we’re carrying and prefer to just watch it go ‘round and ‘round the baggage carousel, hoping someone else will have to deal with it. That only lasts so long my friends. We eventually have to name it and claim it. So to all of my sweet readers, I’m asking we make a bold attempt and do one thing this Easter: PUT DOWN THE LUGGAGE. That’s right, it’s time we roll our suitcases forward, collapse the handles and place it all at the foot of the cross. What are we waiting on? We can do this!

The next time you go shopping or to dinner, take a look at the people around you. Of course I don’t want you to get arrested as a stalker, but do be a bit observant. Scowls, raised voices, couples avoiding conversations at the dinner table, it’s easy to see that we all carry around a LOT of emotions. I’ve known individuals who seem as calm as the center seed of a cucumber and yet their blood pressure is through the roof. Hmmm. Sounds like a luggage problem to me. Likewise there’s been instances in my life where I’ve wanted to scream with frustration, “I cannot handle another single thing!” There’s a reason Carrie Underwood’s song “Jesus Take the Wheel,” was a big hit. We could just as easily sing, “Jesus, take the Samsonite! It’s a back breaker and my arms are worn out! ” Yes, I am learning little by little to lay it all down at His feet. Shouldn’t we definitely think about it at Easter? This should be the holiday in which we rejoice the most! Jesus was crucified and resurrected to illustrate His unconditional love for us. If He is our Lord and Savior, then we can lay anything—anything—down at his feet and ask for forgiveness. Our burdensome luggage then becomes weightless and non-existent. Hallelujah!!

Of course, I know there’s some skeptics out there. Yours truly becomes one on a regular basis. I often wonder why God allowed some of the crazy things to happen in my life. Of course, He grants us free will and like a patient Father, He watches and waits, knowing full well of the consequences we’re about to endure. But isn’t that how we all learn?

Just like the Tic Tac Toe game I used to play with my daughters, I’ve occasionally felt my life was one wrong move away from losing it. That regardless of how hard I tried to concentrate on making the right decision, that I might screw it up and then boom—everything would go away. Quite simply, that’s called “Living in Fear instead of Living in Faith.” Or perhaps in terms of this blog post, it could be called “Overworking the Wrong Muscles.” We need to give our arms and brain a rest, stop overthinking everything, and have FAITH that a power far greater than us is in charge of it all.

Whether we are reading from the book of Daniel or Isaiah, it was foretold hundreds of years prior that Christ would be born, die, and be resurrected to save us. God, in His infinite wisdom, designed his Son’s first breath and his last. Through countless means of research, Biblical scholars agree that if one uses the Babylonian calendar and aligns it with Biblical prophecy (not to mention compares it to tons of historical documents), that Palm Sunday and Jesus’s entering of Jerusalem was predicted down to the very day in which it actually occurred. Reread that my friends. Down.To.The. Very. Day.

If God can control the very second each nail was pounded into His Son’s flesh—all because of His immense love for us—then surely we must rest in faith knowing that every instance in our life is EXACTLY what God has allowed. We must pray, trust, and enjoy the life in which we’ve been given.

Lay down your heavy luggage at the foot of the cross and then go dance as David! Run, skip, wiggle, jump! You should feel light as a feather as a child of the King!

Happy Easter Everyone. You are loved!!!!

Angie