Some seasons hand us a weight we cannot set down. The diagnosis, the loss, the burden we did not choose. This sonnet sits with the carrying, and with the One who walks the road with us when we cannot find the strength to walk it alone.
The Sonnet
This weight was not the load I would have chose, And yet it has been laid upon my back, And I must walk the road that no one knows, With aching shoulders, on this stony track. I cannot put it down. I have not strength, And no one passing offers to relieve, The way ahead extends its slow long length, And what I carry I can only grieve. But somewhere on this road I am not alone, A Presence walks beside me, slow and sure, Whose own back bent beneath a greater stone, Whose silent kindness keeps the heart endure. So I will walk, with what I cannot lay, And He will walk with me along the way.
Reflection
There are weights in this life that no advice can lift. The chronic illness, the grief that does not lessen with time, the responsibility that fell to us when we did not ask for it. The temptation, when we are carrying such a thing, is to feel that something has gone wrong, that faith should be lighter than this.
The gospel does not promise a light load. It promises a Companion. Christ Himself carried a cross. He knows the feel of a weight that cannot be set down. And He walks beside the ones who carry such weights now, not always lightening the load, but always making it a road walked together. That, sometimes, is the deepest grace we are given.
Whatever you are carrying today, you are not carrying it alone. The Christ who knows the weight of wood is walking beside you, and He will walk all the way to the end.
