A burden lifted…

I think my sappy posts just might be coming back. But this time they are little more real. A big step for the good ol’ Cotter Crunch. But alas, it’s time to share a little more. Time to give you all a little more.

"God is lovingly taking everything that has happened, creating something of great worth.

In the void of our lives, He does His best work, faithful to bring order out of chaos, beauty out of darkness."

In a marriage, I firmly believe we should carry each other’s burdens. This helps lighten the load for one another and maybe, just maybe, relieve some tension. It’s all supposed to even out, right? Well what if those burdens kept feeding off each other and continued to weigh each other down more and more. It would cause huge stress and exhaustion.

A few weeks ago we realized that this was us. Striving to meet each other needs and wants while also carrying each other burdens just left us tired, feeling strained/stressed, and going nowhere.

I would often (and still kinda do) worry about the hubs training. Is he training enough or is he training too much? I don’t want him to be tired and feel like he has to work more in order to afford travel/accommodations for races.  Is his knee feeling okay today? Is he eating the right meals? Am I making him enough food? Quality food? Should I budget more? Maybe I should take on more clients, teach more classes, or try to promote Healthy Bites more, etc. etc. etc. The point was, I wanted him to feel free to train and race as his profession and not worry about finances. So I busied myself so much that I when I actually did have down time, i became anxious. My stomach would hurt, I’d feel nauseous, and a little sick to my stomach. I had become one big ball of mess, and I had forgotten to take care of my own needs. In fact, I felt guilty when I did.

In return, the hubs would worry about me. He’d look at me and say “stop, just rest. Don’t worry about taking on more. You’re too busy.” He worried constantly about me and my need to take on more and more. It was always on his mind and I could see that he was stressed and feeling anxious about something. He felt useless, like he couldn’t do anything to stop this cycle. And he couldn’t.

So you see, we kept feeding each other’s burdens, to the point where it just became too heavy. Neither of us had strength to lift. We were too weak.

But where we are weak, HE (God) is strong. Through lots of continued prayer, we have realized that God is the only one who can carry these burdens. How have we not realized that before? How have lost sight of that? Easy, it’s the constant need to feel in control or want more out of life. That’s how. And with that, we lost JOY!

Today we are slowly but surely gaining strength. Strength to lift, or rather release these burdens from each other and hand them over to God. He is in control, not me. And first time in a long time, I am okay with that. Phew!

I write this today for many reasons. For one, I felt like God put it on my heart. And two, to let you see that life is messy and life is heavy. We are not the perfect couple. We don’t have our sh*t together. But thank God we don’t have to worry about that anymore.  Instead, let’s love one another, pray for one another, thank God for what He's given us, and just live one day at a time.

Easier said than done some days, but it’s a start. 

Cheerfully Yours,
LC

p.s.
I realize that not everyone will agree with me on this topic. This may not be a post you can relate to or want to read about, and thats okay. I wrote this for me today.
:)