A Brick in Your Pocket

 Tragedy...loss...burden...how do you deal with it?

On our 8 hour bus ride from San Salvador, El Salvador to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, the bus played a couple movies while we were in route. One movie they played was Rabbit Hole, which I had never seen before. Below is an excerpt from that movie:

Becca: Does it ever go away?
Nat: No, I don't think it does. Not for me, it hasn't - has gone on for eleven years. But it changes though.
Becca: How?

Nat: I don't know... the weight of it, I guess. At some point, it becomes bearable. It turns into something that you can crawl out from under and... carry around like a brick in your pocket. And you... you even forget it, for a while. But then you reach in for whatever reason and - there it is. Oh right, that. Which could be awful - not all the time. It's kinda...[deep breath]
Nat: not that you'd like it exactly, but it's what you've got instead of your son. So, you carry it around. And uh... it doesn't go away. Which is...
Becca: Which is what?
Nat: Fine, actually.

In this conversation, Becca was asking her mom (Nat) if the pain of losing a child to death ever goes away.  Becca just recently lost her young son in the movie and her mom, Nat, also lost her son. She was asking if the grief and sorrow from her personal tragedy will ever go away. When I heard this above conversation, it resonated with me. You can take out the word "son" and replace it with whatever word best represents your tragedy, loss, or burden. When you are overwhelmed and burdened by your own personal tragedy or burden, you may ask yourself if the pain of it all will ever go away. You may not see the end in sight. Every day may seem just as painful and unbearable as the last day. But that's not true. It eventually "becomes bearable. It turns into something that you can crawl out from under and...carry around like a brick in your pocket." It no longer is something that is weighing down on your shoulders so much that you can't even lift it or walk bearing it. Sometimes you carry it around, because it is the only thing familiar and known to you. You carry around the sadness like it's the only thing you are sure will be there each day. But God promises to carry our burdens for us. He promises healing, restoration, and liberation if only we give over all those situations to Him. He promises comfort. He promises freedom.

"Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken."

Psalm 55:22

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort."

2 Corinthians 1:3-7