A couple of weeks ago, I heard some troubling news that cast a burden onto my soul.  I felt emotionally thrown off base.  Things felt weighted.

Putting the information out of my mind, I quickly recovered from the sticky feeling of grief and confusion.  I was ready to get busy and move on.  But I got sick and ended up having to take two days off to recover.

For those two days, I had to sit with the weight.  There was nothing I could do to distract myself.  I was sitting alone in an apartment, sleeping and thinking.  Thinking and sleeping.

I recovered physically and went back to work.  But I continued to feel weighted and exhausted.  There was a deep-seated heaviness and for the life of me I could not shake it.  I felt tired and distrusting.  The struggle was so deeply internal that I couldn’t figure out what was going on.  I felt like I was on the outside looking in; I felt as if I were moving in slow motion.  I felt down on myself in a way that was raw and threatening.  I prayed and cried and wrestled, but I couldn’t shake the weight.  Something was twisting and turning deep down inside and I couldn’t get a handle on it.

Yesterday, I talked to a friend on the phone.  I cried.  I told her what was happening inside me.  I was just “processing out loud.”  I needed someone to hear every crazy thought inside my head.  And all at once, this heavy internal struggle came out of hiding and was sitting in the open before me.

The light got to it.

The air got to it.

It could breathe.  It could breathe.

I told my friend, “I’ve had this weighted feeling for the past couple of weeks and I just… I can’t get on top of it.”

Her words to me?

“Why are you trying to get on top of it?  Maybe He just wants you to put it down.”

Her words tore through me like a gust of wind in a sail.  They echoed out within the corridors of my soul and in that moment I knew.  Yes.

Let it go.

Put it down.

I am all too familiar with the feeling of weight.

But too little do I lay it down.

Why do I carry what Jesus has conquered?

Now, I am pondering and praying.  Today, I am leaning into my Savior.

Taking it day by day, I remember my favorite verse, John 16:33.

Be undaunted; he has conquered.