Weight...

Saturday night I did something that my son has been asking me to do for a few weeks now...

I was sick to my stomach and so didn't want to do it...and with the first stroke of the clippers I think there may have been tears in my eyes.

Charlie has been growing his hair out since March and it had only been cut once...it was so cute...it still had blonde streaks running through it from the summer sun...it swept right across the tops of his eyes...oh it was so stinkin' cute. He was sick of it though. He told me it was too hard to take care of...he hated that it hung down on his forehead while he played soccer and football...and he was just done with it. I think I tried to talk him out of it like 15 times and then I just said, "it's your hair Chuck...we'll cut it if that's what you want." And then I got out my trusty clippers.

The whole time I was cutting it he kept telling me why he wanted it short again...bless his heart, he was having to console me and convince me that it was going to be alright. As soon as it was done I looked at him and said "oh Charlie...you are just so handsome it wouldn't matter what you did to your hair...I love it".

He still felt like he should convince me of his need for a "new do". He was telling me how easy it was going to be...how much quicker he would shower...that it wouldn't hang in his eyes...that I wouldn't have to help him fix it...that he wouldn't even have a need for conditioner. I laughed at him as he ran up the steps to take a shower, all the while wondering where my little boy had gone.

After his shower I sat down to talk to him before bed...the other kids were knocked out, so it was just me and him. I joked with him about all that hair laying on the floor and how it had looked like a dead animal and I wondered how much it weighed! He said, "I wonder if I lost weight", as he jumped up and ran to the scale. I hear him holler from the other room..."Nah, I gained 1.2 pounds". I am dying laughing at my crazy son...especially when he came back and told me that he just knew that he was going to be able to run faster since he wouldn't have all that hair holding him back.

As I swept the kitchen today I came across one little bunch of hair that had somehow gotten lost under the kitchen desk after I had swept the small animal up Saturday night. It brought back all the things that took place and what was said...and God showed me something. Just like Charlie's hair weighed him down...that's how sin is...and that's how burdens are. They weigh us down..makes us slow...it takes longer to accomplish things(like Charlie showering)...they hinder us. So many times in our lives we carry our burdens around like "it's just our cross to bear" and we try to be a martyr, instead of just giving those burdens..that weight..to God. We stay in our sin and try to convince ourselves that we just can't give it up or get away from it...it ensnares us.

I have been there...where I felt like there was nothing I could do...I was trapped by my sin...my self-pity...my anger...my bitterness...and I was trapped. How grateful to God I am, that in His rich mercy He saw fit to reach down...work in my heart...He stripped that weight right off of me...and I laid those burdens down and I ran. Ran back to Him...ran to make things right with people that I had hurt...ran to the Word...I ran. I felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off of my chest...I had been so weighed down, and when God freed me of those burdens...that sin..I was lighter. I am sure it didn't show up on the scale (especially since the week this happened was my birthday week and I literally ate my face off)but I was lighter...and I can say that only because of Him. It had n-o-t-h-i-n-g to do with me being strong enough, or good enough, or anything enough. It was all Him...every last ounce.

Charlie reminded me of that when he cut his hair and felt lighter...free...even faster. Who doesn't want to weigh a little less and have better endurance? My friends, I urge you to lay those burdens aside...that sin that has you in a trap...and just run.

Hebrews 12:1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us