Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Cross (as in the Cross of Christ) (08/17/06)
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TITLE: Taking Worry to the Cross | Previous Challenge Entry
By Bonnie Derksen
08/21/06 -
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As a daughter of the King, she went to Him for help.
“Father, I have such concern for my son’s future. He is walking a dangerous path. Through the night I mull the whole situation over. When I wake, the worry is there to greet me, so I pick it up, checking on it through the day. I shift its weight in my arms to make it an easier load but I am weary. If you change my son’s ways I will be able to lay this burden down.”
The Spirit of the Living God spoke. “Daughter, you are carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength. It is an unnecessary burden for you. Take it to the cross.”
Desiring to be obedient, the daughter, who was also a mother, prayerfully laid the bundle of worry down.
But then Trouble paid the mother’s son another visit, setting off a new reaction of fear and panic. Without thinking, she bent down and picked the heavy load up again. As she balanced it in her arms, she studied and pondered the consequences of recent developments, coming up with several unpleasant possibilities. The burden became all consuming again, taking her eyes off her King.
“Daughter, what is that in your arms?” The voice of the Father interrupted her musings.
“Worry and concern for my son, Lord.”
“Did I ask you to carry it for me?”
“No, Father,” She responded sheepishly.
“My child, there is provision for your burden in the shadow of the cross. Lay it down there and, this time, release it.”
The mother, who was also a child, desperately wanted to be rid of her load. But the circumstances that had initiated the burden carrying had not changed; they seemed to be getting worse. She knew the King could protect and keep her son, but her faith, in each moment, was weak; she walked by sight.
The Father knew His daughter was like a flower in the field, steady one moment, shaky the next. He knew that her mother-heart was troubled by all she saw. But still He delighted in her and longed for her freedom from the heavy load of worry and fear. In the midst of the circumstances, He surrounded her with songs of deliverance. But while she carried worry she would not, could not, hear the music of freedom.
The Father, who was also the King, heard His daughter’s fresh cries and was moved to compassion. He knelt before her; hands cupped under her chin, collecting the tears that poured down her face from her broken and fear-filled heart.
Weary from the battle, recognizing that she was helpless to carry worry any longer, the child, who was also the mother, opened her heart completely, surrendering her son’s future into the hands of his Creator. Spiritual awareness flooded over her, sight exchanged for blindness. On her knees before a rugged cross, she sobbed with conviction regarding her lack of faith in the Faithful One. With great determination and fresh understanding, she fully laid fear-for-her-son’s-future at the base. She sobbed with relief.
Standing now, she took a step back as heavy drops of blood began to fall on the load of worry and concern, causing it to sizzle and hiss, as in a chemical reaction. Right before her eyes, it began to shrink in size. Smoke rose as the ground shifted pulling the mother’s burden down below the surface, and out of sight.
The daughter, who was also the mother, turned her eyes heavenward and raised her arms to the sky. Out of the well of freedom now found in her heart, she sang of the Father’s deliverance:
Joy’s replaced the worry,
Love has covered fear.
A freedom song surrounds me,
Its sound, this day, I hear.
Having found rest and renewal in the shadow of the cross of Christ, the mother began her descent back to the valley of her life. Her arms empty, the cross having established a fresh anchor of hope for her future and that of her son’s, she could now attend to the business of her Father, the King.
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