“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you.  I have made you and I will carry you;  I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Isaiah 46:4

Heaviness

A couple days ago, I woke up with a heaviness in my heart. I felt anxious and stressed as well. I could physically feel the weight of all this. There are some practical reasons for what was happening, but it was extreme and I knew I couldn’t go through my day feeling this way.

When I wake up each morning, I have a therapeutic hot drink first thing that’s part of my daily treatment regimen, and then I have breakfast. By the time I have breakfast it’s been about 15 hours since I last ate, and I’m usually so hungry. On the morning when I woke up with this heaviness/stress/anxiety, I knew I couldn’t proceed as normal. I simply pushed “normal” aside and started to pray and talk to the Lord about what I was feeling. A friend texted me right then, and I asked her to pray for me too.

For about an hour I prayed, worshiped the Lord, called out to Him, read promises from the Bible… and waited on God to help me. Just as I could physically feel the heaviness when I woke up, I began to physically feel it lifting! It was like a weight being lifted off of me. As I “cast my burdens” on the Lord, I sensed Him taking them from my heart. There was a sweet presence of the Lord that replaced the burdens… an awareness of His love and care for me and for our family. It stayed with me all through the day—on what ended up to be a wonderful day! In fact, all through that day and the following day I felt like God was “filling my cup” to overflowing with the sweetness and grace of His presence.

I read an article recently stating that the “root of the word persevere is the word severe.” You and I are walking through “severe” things. But we are not alone on the journey as we persevere. My “wake up call” experience was a good reminder of how to respond to the heavy things we face… and a reminder of how God will meet us. I know this, of course, but it was like God wanted to add an explanation point right now to show His power to meet me and help me. It was a dramatic demonstration into my life. I can’t persevere on my own through the heaviness of all that is happening in my life—but God can meet me and help me. He does this because He is so incredibly faithful!

Casting our burdens, our cares, the weights we are carrying onto the Lord isn’t just a nice spiritual phrase. It’s a very real thing we can do—and God meets us in a very real way.

Father, meet us again today as we cast our cares on You. Amen.