Lonely Loads - One Year Devotions for Women

Share each other’s troubles and problems, and in this way obey the law of Christ. - Galatians 6:2

There is a time for everything, a season for this and a season for that. There is a time to bear a care in solitude, and a time to share a prayer with a friend. We need the wisdom to know when to shoulder responsibility, when to delegate, and when to cast it all upon Jesus—our incomparable Burden-bearer.

Sometimes I have to have a cry, then wash my face and get on with it! I know I must bear the thing alone. Another day, when I was burdened beyond belief after watching a loved one suffer, a friend came to me and touched my hurt with tenderness, mending the raw edges of my helplessness. Such love brought a blessed buoyancy that helped more than I could tell. Someone cared enough to help make my burden bearable. Yes, there is a season for sorrow, a time to bear another’s burdens.

But there comes a time when only God’s shoulders are broad enough to carry the weight of my worry. Then crushing burdens become carried burdens. Yoked to him, I can plow my lonely furrow, walk a straight path, cope with the intolerable, and figure out the impossible. Then, having been carried, I am sent on my way strengthened to help carry another. I need to pray: Show me when to share, Lord; commission me to carry, Lord. And teach me not to burden one of your special children, if I must bear my burden alone!

For Further Study: Galatians 6:1-10

Excerpted from The One Year Devotions for Women, Copyright ©2000 by Jill Briscoe. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

For more from Jill Briscoe, please visit TellingtheTruth.org.

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