I remember my mother sitting me down once and telling me, "You can't put everyone's problems on your shoulders." Imagine a mother having to tell her teenager that. To my surprise, I can't even remember what I was worried about. Even so, her words are more powerful now to me than they were before.
A new year will soon be upon us and with that new year, people tend to shed what they no longer want. Debt, weight, clothes, junk and, surprisingly, relationships. Yes, relationships. At one time, I would have never considered grouping relationships in with the others, but, there comes a time when we have to know when to let those go, too.
While I know dissolving a relationship is never as easy as discarding a piece of junk, we can't afford to find ourselves being suffocated by inviting too much of it in our lives or our space. Thinking back to my mother's words, I realize that I can't put everyone else's problems on my shoulders. I can't put the problems of dishonesty, pettiness, jealousies, disrespect or hatefulness from people on my shoulders. It's too much to carry for a person who is moving forward. Sometimes, the rate at which we travel into our destinies is determined by what we are holding onto and attempting to carry with us.
I think back to a morning when I volunteered in my church's nursery. In a class filled with roaming toddlers, me and another volunteer found ourselves dashing across the room to separate two of the two-year-olds. A tug-of-war over an equally desired toy quickly morphed into a fistfight. After a few minutes of separation on opposite sides of the room, they once again crossed paths to find other toys and playmates. Once the evil-eye exchange was over, within minutes, both children found themselves in happier places, with new friends to occupy the rest of the time.
I often wondered why those two didn't come together in peace and harmony before playtime was over, but, what intrigued me more was how they were able to eventually let the matter rest and go about their lives. The battle became a distant memory and all was forgotten by the time their parents came to take them home.
It's simply a waste of time for us to reach back into the past and wish that we hadn't spent so much time on things and situations that didn't matter. The only thing we can do now is go forward, determined not to let too much more of our time be wasted continually fighting battles that no longer need to be fought. I understand even more now why Jesus encouraged us to be more like little children. They play, they fight, they forget and then they play again. Even though the two in my class didn't come back together in fellowship, in the end, they kept their peace and remembered their joy. They simply moved on.
We don't have to wait for the new year to come in before we begin to rid ourselves of the things that are keeping us from moving forward. Sometimes, the only thing you can do to keep your peace is to let go. It may be that whatever it is will remain a part of the past. It could also be that as you move forward and progress, you'll find that what you let go of was for another time and place. Either way, you won't know until you put down the weight of what's keeping you back and move forward. Let it begin with me.
