"MEMORIES OF MARY"
Cast your burdens on the Lord and he will sustain you. (Psalm 55:22)
Years ago, a woman named Mary pushed a shopping cart along the streets of south Austin. Her daily route included the sidewalk in front of our funeral home. Month by month, the task grew visibly more grueling as the woman aged and the contents of her cart swelled to overflowing.
As a rule, when I greeted Mary she shouted at me angrily, demanding that I stay back and leave her alone. Occasionally, she permitted me to approach her, to exchange a few words, and to admire her little dog resting comfortably on a blanket in the child seat. Those rare instances allowed me a glimpse of what Mary had wedged, layered, and piled into her cart: old shoes, tattered clothing and threadbare blankets, empty cellophane wrappers and crumpled plastic bags, and dozens of items so scrunched and soiled as to be unidentifiable.
During the time I knew Mary, to the extent that knowing her was possible, the crosswinds of her untreated mental illness never abated. By any measure, her life was unspeakably hard, most visibly the strain of maneuvering her cumbersome cart. On some level, Mary probably knew that most of what she hauled in her cart had no utilitarian value at all, yet there it remained.
I found it puzzling that Mary was unable to part with the very things that made her life harder. And yet, at times, we do just the same thing. In our emotional and spiritual carts, we add rubble from painful experiences to layers of accumulated debris. Sometimes we even wedge into the space futile worries about tomorrow. Like most of the things in Mary's cart, the bits and pieces we lug around serve no purpose at all. They are burdens and nothing more. It's no small wonder that at times we travel life's journey with a heavy heart.
In Psalm 55, the author writes, "Cast your burdens on the Lord and he will sustain you." But what does that mean? How does a person go about that? It's an important question and one that I would not presume to answer. In my mind, though, casting cares upon the Lord evokes images of Mary. She is finally shedding layers of accumulated clutter from her cart and accepting the help of a Compassionate Friend. "Come to me," Jesus said, "all who are weary and I will give you rest."
Years ago, a woman named Mary pushed a shopping cart along the streets of south Austin. Her daily route included the sidewalk in front of our funeral home. Month by month, the task grew visibly more grueling as the woman aged and the contents of her cart swelled to overflowing.
As a rule, when I greeted Mary she shouted at me angrily, demanding that I stay back and leave her alone. Occasionally, she permitted me to approach her, to exchange a few words, and to admire her little dog resting comfortably on a blanket in the child seat. Those rare instances allowed me a glimpse of what Mary had wedged, layered, and piled into her cart: old shoes, tattered clothing and threadbare blankets, empty cellophane wrappers and crumpled plastic bags, and dozens of items so scrunched and soiled as to be unidentifiable.
During the time I knew Mary, to the extent that knowing her was possible, the crosswinds of her untreated mental illness never abated. By any measure, her life was unspeakably hard, most visibly the strain of maneuvering her cumbersome cart. On some level, Mary probably knew that most of what she hauled in her cart had no utilitarian value at all, yet there it remained.
I found it puzzling that Mary was unable to part with the very things that made her life harder. And yet, at times, we do just the same thing. In our emotional and spiritual carts, we add rubble from painful experiences to layers of accumulated debris. Sometimes we even wedge into the space futile worries about tomorrow. Like most of the things in Mary's cart, the bits and pieces we lug around serve no purpose at all. They are burdens and nothing more. It's no small wonder that at times we travel life's journey with a heavy heart.
In Psalm 55, the author writes, "Cast your burdens on the Lord and he will sustain you." But what does that mean? How does a person go about that? It's an important question and one that I would not presume to answer. In my mind, though, casting cares upon the Lord evokes images of Mary. She is finally shedding layers of accumulated clutter from her cart and accepting the help of a Compassionate Friend. "Come to me," Jesus said, "all who are weary and I will give you rest."
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