What's in Your Backpack?
Author: Beverly Cooley
February 27, 2025
A backpack is a novel creation designed to make life easier. A simple pouch designed to aid in carrying a heavy load on your shoulders to distribute the weight and free your hands to do other things. It has been used by military, hikers, campers, students and even Mom’s.
Today many of us have a non-visible backpack that we choose to carry around. Daily stuffing things that we do not want the outside world to see we are struggling with. Memories of choices we have made that we are ashamed of or often regret. Things in our past that are so awful we have never been able to cope emotionally to the trauma that was forced on us by no fault of our own. We are left with the physical and/or emotional scars as reminder of what happened to us at the hand of another. Fears that are so overwhelming that we are paralyzed and some days not even able to get out of bed.
I myself struggle with self-worth and the ability to love myself just as I am - A woman hand crafted by the Potter’s hand designed to be different yet with a divine ultimate purpose HE has created just for me. People have hurt me, lead me astray, blindsided me and ultimately caused me to doubt myself.
My Dad once asked me what was weighing me down...what could he do to lighten my load? He shared a visual picture for me to consider...picture with me a backpack that was full of bricks so heavy you could no longer physically carry it. He then asked me what was a brick that he could take out of my backpack. I shared with him some of the things that I was struggling with and he began to pray asking God to reveal to him how he could help me and remove some of the load I was carrying. I knew that I was not alone in feeling burdened. I reached out to friends and family asking them to share with me a single word that reflects things in life that might be weighing on someone’s shoulders, causing them to have sleepless nights, causing them to worry, things that
were overwhelming or sins that have entangled a person’s heart trapping them.
As I began receiving words from friends I had not heard from in years I quickly realized that many people are struggling with self-worth, addiction, cancer, stillbirth, debt, fear, COVID-19, the state of our nation, children, infidelity, betrayal, jobs, tragedy, sexuality, inequality, hopelessness, bullying, loneliness, infertility, grades, resentment, peer pressure, racism, obesity, acceptance, abuse, jealously, hunger, depression, unemployment, grief, anger, parents, pride, insecurity, envy, anxiety, sadness, unforgiveness and regret.
WHY ME? I can not begin to explain why these things happen to those around us. I do know that God uses people in unexpected ways to remove bricks from our backpacks to lighten our load. My Parents will never know the impact they had on my life and the life of those around me. Their removing bricks from my backpack has allowed my husband and I to pay it forward helping others in need.
As the bricks that are weighing us down are removed from our backpack, we are to lay them at the foot of the cross and leave them there. We begin to see a pathway forming leading to the cross as each brick is laid down. Jesus chose to die on the cross so that he could take on our burdens. The cross is a shield of protection against the things that trouble us. Jesus paid the ultimate price so that we no longer would be weighted down. In Him we are free from the burdens we carry around. Lay it at the foot of the Cross and be FREE.
We then should “Give Praise to the Lord our God and Savior, who daily carries our burdens.” Psalm 68:19 What is in your backpack or better yet how can Jesus use you today to remove a brick from someone else’s backpack?
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