| Do you ever look at the blessings in your life as burdens? It’s an alarming question, I know. I am guilty of this all the time. I am blessed with a beautiful family. All of my kids are involved in stuff that become burdens on my time, finances and more. I am blessed with properties that I have the ability to fix up and make beautiful. I can write a set of encyclopedias on the burdens they have become. I am blessed with a small business that provides joy to many. But it too is frequently a huge burden. Blessings can be burdens. I have extended family that wants some of our time. Burden. I have friends that I would love to hang out with but because of all the other stuff, I can’t. This creates a burden of guilt and longing for a simpler time when I could hang with my friends. I am not complaining. Just simply exposing and acknowledging a fact. When we add things to our life, when we seek out blessings, we invite the plague of burden. It is really, really easy to look at the demands on our time and our finances solely as burdens. We forget the blessings they provide and that the burden is simply the maintenance of those blessings. In order for us to fully enjoy the blessing of these things, we have to acknowledge the burden and then move past that mindset to where we see it as a blessing again. I am blessed to have properties that I have to maintain. I am blessed that I have family that wants us around. I am blessed that my kids are able to swim, play baseball, be in plays, work out for football and more. It’s easy to slip into the burden mindset. Really easy. But try to fight that. Those burdens exist to bless you. |
