Do you ever get the feeling that your job as mother is to be a pack mule? If I think about it I find that I carry a lot for my children. Aside from the washing and cooking and bandaging (I have 5 boys, that equals quite a few bandages...) and chauffeuring, I tend to carry their joys, fears, hopes and hearts as well.
Some of my guys have heavy loads to carry and just can't do it on their own so they place part of the load on me for safe keeping. Sometimes helping to ease the burden is all they need. Other times they want me to carry every thought and memory because they have been carrying such a heavy weight for such a long time. Sometimes they suddenly want their burden back because they feel awkward and naked without it so they violently rip it from my heart. And don't think it's just the adopted ones who have burdens to bear. My "home cooked" children have their own struggles and they are no less significant because abuse or neglect were not involved. We are not perfect parents and this is not a perfect world so they are left with the task of making sense of their childhood, wading through the errors we've made and going through the long hard process of sifting through their life experiences so they can, hopefully, avoid making some of the mistakes we made as parents and establishing their own adulthood in Christ.
There are times when I look at it all and think, "why am I the one chosen by everyone to carry their stuff, I have my own stuff to carry!". I feel like Frodo with The One Ring, the burden heavy around my neck. I want to complain and give it to someone else! But then I realize that perhaps that is my calling. Perhaps my job is to glorify the Lord, not as war horse, but as a donkey. Perhaps they place their burden on me so I can help them learn how to place it on Him and maybe, just maybe, I will learn how to follow where He leads and place all burdens when He directs me to lay them. Frodo didn't just carry the Ring so that he would ultimately be saved. He carried the burden of all Middle Earth that all might be saved.
Is it so bad to be a donkey? Not if I get to be in the service of my loving Master.
