"The Heavy Burden"
[Honoré Daumier]
Hymn: “There Is a Name I Love to Hear” - Frederick Whitfield
(1829-1904)
Tune: OH, HOW I LOVE JESUS
There are indeed earthly sorrows that no other human can
help us carry. We know those sorrows – the loss of friends and family members,
great career difficulties, the final implosion of a long relationship… and our
personal list goes on and on, sometimes beyond anyone else’s imaginings. Because
we keep that stiff upper lip and maintain the cheerful countenance, those
around us may not even know that we need their help to shoulder the current
load.
This One who first loved us, and about whom we sing of our
love – he can take on any sorry we may hoist upon him and help us deal with it.
He may even turn that sorrow into eventual joy.
My wife Carlita is terribly fond of a Rascal Flats song that talks about coming through difficulties into eventual joy:
Every
long lost dream led me to where you are.
Others who broke my heart, they were
like Northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your
loving arms.
This much I know is true:
That led me straight to you.*
For
most of us, there have been many broken roads – probably more broken dreams. Above all the stuff that seemed at the time to be broken, there stood a loving,
observant, compassionate Savior. And as soon as he saw that the sorrow was
about to weigh us down and make us immobile, he changed positions and came
underneath us to bear the part that none can bear in this life.
Upon
comprehending his help and feeling the weight somewhat lifted, we have no other
refrain to sing but: O how much I love
Jesus… because he first loved me.
Today,
I’m going to attend the funeral of a many-year friend who has suffered for a
long time with a difficult illness. She’s my age. She sang in my first choir
after seminary, and her daughters came up through my graded choir program. I’m
not sure which hymns will be played or sung at the service, but I know that
THIS is the hymn-line I will be thinking on, prayerful that her family will be
borne up in their sorrow.
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