Do you have baggage? We all do.

It’s like we are each born with an empty suitcase. All through life we accumulate stuff that we store in our suitcase. This stuff is not trinkets and treasures, clothes or souvenirs.  Oh no, we pack our suitcase with our mistakes, shame, lies, and fears. All the stuff we don’t want anyone else to see.

Every bad or sad or hurtful thing we’ve done or thought. Every good or kind or helpful thing we haven’t done that we should have. We just keep packing and the bag keeps getting heavier.

And life goes on, everyone with their suitcase. We even can start to think it’s OK to have this baggage.  After all, everyone has a suitcase.

We try to dress up our suitcase with decorations and scented sachet’s. We can try to make it pretty, or trendy, or even try camouflage. We can try to hide the stench of what’s inside. But our baggage is there, getting heavier all the time. We continue through life packing our shame, failures, guilt, and pain inside. All the while hoping no one notices or sees what’s inside. Yet we know.

Sometimes the bag gets heavy, clumsy, or awkward to carry…still we keep packing it, all the while cleverly finding ways to hide the contents from everyone else. Once in a while, if we’re really brave, we show some of the contents to special people we trust, like our spouse or our very best friends. Sometimes they are shocked. Sometimes they cry with us. Sometimes they get mad. Sometimes they scold us. Sometimes they try to help. Sometimes we learn people are unsafe.

And sometimes they can help. A little. They can encourage us when our bag is heavy and the hill ahead seems long and far too steep. Yet the truth of the matter remains: no matter how much they want to help, all of the contents still belong to us.

One of the things in life that weigh us down – emotionally, mentally, and yes, even physically – is that we carry around baggage that actually isn’t even ours. We will explore this in future posts. Carrying around that which isn’t ours to carry adds needless weight to our journey.

This category will explore how we can evaluate our suitcase, unpack it, and lighten our load…for good!

So, what’s in your suitcase?