The Lie: "You Are a Burden" The Truth: "Bear One Another's Burdens"

You are a burden. Your problems are too much.

Alone.

This is where the enemy wants us. This is where I have always become most vulnerable to the silent whispering lies that I can get through "this" alone....I can't trust anyone....No one will care....you are too much of a burden...

In honesty, I cannot think of a time in my life that I didn't feel like a burden. As children, I don't think we can fully grasp what that means, but as we grow and move into the teenage years, it makes more sense and it carries a certain weight that is more difficult to carry. It also creates a lot of confusion and misunderstanding because even as a teenager, there are a lot of things in life that we are not fully aware of or can grasp. Divorce is hard. Trying to find your place in your family, your new step-parents, where it is best to be, where it isn't...the whole dynamic is difficult. Your trying to find your place in life in a general sense and add to that trying to find your place within your different family dynamics and amongst the "trouble" you seem to carry....it is a lot for all involved and this isn't about pointing fingers, it is just a place I found myself.

When I first met Aaron and we fell for each other, he was the first person that I didn't feel that way around. He always made me feel like I was wanted, needed...and with him, I felt like it all clicked. Within time, that lie began to slide back in because I realized how much baggage I carried into our relationship (some of those lies will come in at future posts) and the emotional side of me started to feel like I was too much for this guy. This wonderful, accepting, intelligent, loving guy. When I found out I was pregnant, the lie became a complete driving force in my life. Add all the past feelings above within my own family dynamics and finding my place, now we were going to be creating our own family and joining ours together. A whole new group of people being thrust into each others lives through a surprise baby and an upcoming marriage.

It takes two to make a baby, we all know this. Precautions were taken, but here we were. Everyone had feelings, thoughts, opinions and all I could think was that I was now the reason. I was the burden. I had destroyed Aaron's life. When we initially talked about marriage I didn't want to because I didn't want to be the person, the couple, who everyone thought got married because of the upcoming baby. We actually did love each other. This was eventually what our plan was....I couldn't shake the feeling of heaviness, the burden, because some of it was true. This was a lot, we were young and nothing was in line with what anyone would want for us, but for me, the burden feeling fell into a bag that was already heavy with past traumas, feelings, negative thoughts and I was overwrought inside with the whole thing. Some things I shared with Aaron, but most I buried. After all, the last thing he needed was more "stuff" on his shoulders. So the lie grew, the defensive mechanisms began too manifest and I was just lost in this place, this feeling.

The thing with lies is that they always come with actions. Instead of embracing and trying to understand where others in our families were coming from and trying to accept and walk through the loss of what they wanted for us as individuals, I found myself defensive and throwing up walls and having this desperate need to prove myself and for us to be independent. This was destruction at its finest. The hurt, the negativity, the lie turned me into someone so overcome with anxiety, over sensitive to any "criticism", feeling like I was unwanted and not accepted. It began to destroy relationships and cause a heaviness in our marriage.

A burden.

This was a daily thought from the time I woke up to the time I laid my head down. Years into our marriage, we found Him...He found us...

To keep this from being a novel, I am going to have to fast forward to a more present day, but let me say that even after finding Him all of the things I said above continued even as we grew...I was defensive, I felt unwanted, I felt like I was too much, I was unwilling to hear and understand others and our extended family dynamics suffered and struggled for a long time. When I finally began to understand what I was carrying with me (many lies, not just this one), I began to understand how much I really brought to the table and how much of that destruction could have been avoided....

This wasn't just an issue with family, but even with friendships. As our lives began to experience heavy things....our marriage almost coming to a real breaking point, me being found unresponsive, deep struggles with our oldest...I again found myself in a place of feeling like reaching out was a burden. People had their own problems, issues, their own "stuff". I can't imagine how much this hurt family and friends, until one day, I found myself completely just broken. I was tired, mentally struggling and realizing that not only had I pushed this burden thing onto everyone around me, but I had pushed it on to Him.

See, in all of this, the one thing that I struggled with most was self. I could pray for others, do for others, be there for others and I believed all the truth I read, but I believed more for others than I did myself. I had created this space that "alone" is where I belonged and that couldn't be any farther from the Truth.

But God, is merciful and He began to show me just how much He wanted me to come to Him and just how much He created us for relationship and to be there for each other. This isn't to say that I had not already started to create real relationships within the brokenness of family and with friends, it is about what I leaned on others for...it is about asking for help when it was needed, for comfort, for encouragement, for hope...

Galatians 6:2 (esv) clearly teaches, "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (esv) states, "Two are better than one, because they have a

good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe

to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!"

John 15:13 (esv) states, "Greater love has no one than this, that

someone lay down his life for his friends."

Romans 12:15-16 (esv) teaches, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with

those who weep. Live in harmony with one another."

I could go on an on. The truth is, we need each other. As a body of believers, we are not just meant to be one body, but we are commanded to be one body. To live in unity, bear and to support and to rejoice and weep, TOGETHER. We all have different things to bring to the table, but most of all, the body cannot function properly when one part is not unified and functioning with it (Ephesians 4) - when one part is broken the rest should come together to help heal it. When He began to show me this, I started to not only realize how deeply wrong I had been, but how deeply this was what I always wanted. To truly be a part of something more than myself. I didn't want to live in the lonely hole I created for myself, but I wanted to have people, community, others...family...friends...I wanted it and not just with people, but most of all, I wanted a deep rooted relationship with Him. I knew that I wasn't a burden to Him...maybe sometimes He shook is head at me (again and again), but He wanted me. He called me and drew me to Him. He loved me, every good, bad and ugly thing about me...

I am not a burden. I am part of a working body that sometimes breaks down, but because the rest of the body needs me, loves me and wants to be there for me, they come together to carry me, support me and get me through.

Listen, I am a work in progress and there are days that this lie starts to whisper, but the more I am in His truth, the more I know it is what it always has been a lie.

Trials and tribulations are meant to teach us, to grow us, to stretch us and to guide us closer to Him. He blessed me with a patient and loving husband. We are not perfect, but in all of the over 23 years we have been together, we have always had love...maybe not always understanding, community or whatever drama we let get between us, but we have always had love. He has blessed me with a counselor whose patience, listening and instruction has brought me into a better place as a person and a believer. He has blessed me with family in all directions, who forgive, are willing to talk and do the work and who love me in spite of myself. He has placed friends in my life who pursue, speak truth, tell me when I am being dumb and come for me when I start to isolate myself in times of trials.

Alone. I am not alone. I am surrounded by people who love me and who truly want to bear with me and let me bear with them. Most of all, I have a heavenly Father who loves me. Who beats me over the head with truth when I am too stubborn to listen to the gentle whispers and who most of all took the burden, the lie of the burden in His death on the cross and continues to remind me how needed I really am.

You, my friend, are not a burden. You are needed. You are part of a body that needs your working part to work as a whole unit. Most of all, you are loved.