Burdens

 

I began working for Miss Vogel in Churchville, Maryland when I was twelve years old.  I worked on Saturdays in the spring and fall and worked forty hours a week in the summer.  My mom and dad had to take me to work and pick me up in the afternoon, which was a great sacrifice of time and gas for them.  But they were glad for me to be able to learn to work.  By the way, I still work all day, although not for much pay, being retired and all.  In the summers, my mother occasionally would bring my brother Phil (who was two years younger than me) when she picked me up and we would go swimming in Deer Creek two miles from Miss Vogel’s.  But my mother was afraid of the water, and she insisted that we wear those orange life jackets.  But I would agree to almost anything to be able to go swimming.  Deer Creek wasn’t that deep, but in the middle, it was well over my head.  But as the summer wore on, those kapok filled life jackets became waterlogged.  Phillip and I knew it, but my mother didn’t know it ... at least for a while.  One summer day, my mother was getting my life jacket out of the back of the car and remarked, “My this thing is heavy!  Does it still float?!”  and I replied that it didn’t.  She went on, “So you can swim with this heavy, waterlogged life jacket on?”  I replied that I could.  Then she asked to see me swim across Deer Creek without the life jacket on, which I did.  Mom pitched the worthless life jackets, and Phil and I had great fun after that!  Hey, are there things in life that weigh you down like a water-logged life jacket?  Are you encumbered with heavy burdens today?  Why not give them over to the dear Lord?  Let Him carry your burdens.  I Peter 5:7, “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”