These Hevis Don't Belong to Me

 

I laid my head down on the desk. It all just felt too heavy. The giant hole from the leaking pipe in my front yard. The fourth request for work or money in as many days. Waking up with a sore throat and a throbbing leg. Feeling totally unprepared for the study I’m supposed to teach tonight but knowing I have to work all day and wondering when I’ll have time to prepare. Then there’s the patients. The neglected rash turned septic. The simple wound from stepping on sharp grasses threatening the viability of a foot. The double break in a 9 year old’s forearm. Being told I can’t give crutches to someone because we don’t have them. Getting the wrong thing in a medication shipment so I will have to wait another 1-2 months for supplies I have several people asking me for urgently. Staff calling in sick and trying to figure out who I can call in, or how I can find a way to juggle three roles in a four hour shift. And then add to that the self-condemnation that is plaguing my conscience today about my attitudes, motivations, actions and lack of actions. To top it all off there was the emergency cardiac arrest code on the way out the door for lunch that ended in wailing and loss. Heavy.

 

In Papua New Guinea in the trade language (Tok Pisin) they have a term called simply a hevi (said just like ‘heavy’ in English). It means a burden, or an unfortunate or painful or difficult circumstance, or to feel burdened emotionally. It’s a great term because it encapsulates a whole lot of things. That’s how I feel today. The hevis around me keep piling up lately and I keep feeling more and more crushed by them. That’s what found me, in my office, door closed, head on desk, crying out to God. “It’s too heavy, Lord. This job you asked me to do is too heavy. I can’t do it.” I sighed, eyes closed, feeling like an enormous backpack filled with rocks was on my back.

 

But then, God’s words started to come to my mind from the Bible….

 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)

 

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV)

 

“For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” Philippians 2:13 (NIV)

 

“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 7:25 - 8:1 (ESV)

 

^“Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.  Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?[...]  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:33–35, 37-39 (NIV)

 

“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” 2 Corinthians 4:6-10 (NIV)

 

“And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” Romans 8:11 (NIV)

 

Yes. Things feel heavy, and I know that God knows the heaviness I feel and is with me in that heaviness. But He also offers to take that load from me, to help me lift the weight, to be my strength when I am weak, to accomplish the work if I will just stand and follow and obey Him. I lifted my head from my desk, some of the burden already lifting. I still have to face the hole in the yard, the overwhelming medical needs, the Bible study I’m not ready for and the inevitable staffing shortages and my crankiness to go with it. But I know I am not alone and I’m not required to do it in my own strength. These hevis don’t belong to me, they belong to Him. And they aren’t too heavy for Him to shoulder.