My Burden, My Blessing

It’s dark, it’s hot, I’m weary,

In this desolate place I am alone.

As I walk, each step just gets harder,

From this burden I carry of stones.

I’ve picked them up, each one by one,

As I journey this darkening trial.

I wonder each moment just how I’ll go on,

If I can go another mile.

The desert is a lonely place,

And in the night it’s so hard to see,

Just what it is God wants from me,

At what place, does He want me to be.

There must be a reason for each stone that I bear,

If I could just make it through the night.

It all will be so much easier to see,

With the dawn of a morning light.

My words are gone, my heart is spent,

I must rest now for continued strength.

I close my eyes, lay down my load,

And feel peace in a deepened sleep.

But soon I awake to the rising sun,

That gets brighter with every blink,

And a joy begins to swell inside,

From the wealth that I see I am linked.

These stones I know now,

Were well worth their weight,

As I watch them glitter in the sun.

These jewels show me how,

When I thought all was lost,

That this burden was what I had won.

                                                 Wendi Maddox

Author’s Look ~ 

~ This is a re-post from last year. It felt appropriate to follow the post of last week, focused on trusting God. Life brings hard things. . . perspective brings clarity. God is GREATER! Look for Him in it.

     Burdens are something we never look at in life as a positive thing in general, but any who have lived very long, can look back on many of them, and see the hindsight value of some that we have endured.  

     I wrote this poem quite a few years ago, after hearing a message delivered to the ladies at our church.  The speaker was Jelaine Lumpkin, and she challenged us to remember the power of endurance.  Sometimes in life there are dark nights, and heavy things to carry.  We all face it.  But, if we just keep walking through it, and don’t give up, don’t give in, to all that is surrounding us. . . .  what threatens to engulf us, and lean into God to see us through the night . . .there will be a break of dawn at some point, and we may just very well see, that those heavy stones that we were carrying, turned out to be valuable jewels.

     These jewels can come in so many different ways:  situations turned around, lessons learned, insight, strength gained  . . . . and many more possibilities.  The lessons in life that we humans seem to learn from the best . . are usually the ones that came to us in a coiled up mess and that give us some grief.

 It is the tough things in life that make us stronger.  It is the endurance and mindset that we use to get us through, that takes us to a higher place.

Romans 5:3 (ESV) . . . Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Psalms 30:5 (KJV) . . .Be encouraged today if you are facing hard things.  . . . .Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

Don’t give up. Keep walking through it, holding the hand of God, and let Him lead you to whatever you need to make it to the dawn of the new day.

      JEWELS WILL BE GLISTENING IN THAT MORNING LIGHT!