Pack Light, Bag Lady!
First, let me apologize for not posting in soooooo long! Life has been a crazy rollercoaster of trials and triumph that I will be sharing in blog posts to come. So stay tuned to hear about the foolishness that is my life and how God is making it all work together for good (some of it we will be discovering together because all of the "good" hasn't shown up yet!)
Now to the topic of this post... Can I be honest? I am a pack rat! I love STUFF! I have greeting cards from loved ones dating back to 2004, books on just about every subject regarding education and ministry, and not to mention mail! It all started when I was audited by the IRS around 2000. What should have been a simple process turned out to be one of the most stressful events in my life because I didn't keep anything. It took me a long time to gather all of the documentation the IRS requested and to make a long story short I was audited three years in a row! That entire process was so horrible and I vowed that I would never put myself in that predicament again and so I started collecting everything. The most dreadful habit I picked up was that I began to carry receipts in my purse for years. I can't tell you how many wallets I ruined, purse straps I've worn out and how my arm ached from that heavy bag I carried around. Even after I exchanged a purse for Mac's baby bag I continued to stuff receipts, "important papers", and "necessities" in her bag. One day I finally had to say enough is enough. I became embarrassed when someone reached into her baby bag to grab something for me or people continued to offer to help me because I looked weighed down.
This was brought to my remembrance when someone posted this picture in a group message. I immediately thought about how we as women carry EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY! We are bag ladies! Out of fear or obligation we carry the baggage of past relationships, our family's problems, generational curses, past mistakes, fear, pain.... you name it we carry it. But look closely at the picture. The worst part of it all is the only person in the picture that is happy is the one currently being carried. That spoke volumes to me. It helped me understand again that you can't please EVERYBODY at the same time so you may as well do your best for others and always remember to choose YOU!
As I reflected on that, I remembered a lyric to Erykah Badu's Bag Lady that says,
"I guess nobody ever told you
All you must hold on to
Is you, is you, is you"
Many of us carry all of this baggage and are like the lady in the picture; sad, tired, depressed, overwhelmed, burdened down, and just plain mad as hell. Bag lady, all you MUST hold on to is YOU! At the end of the day what good are you to anyone if you are not a whole person. Take Erykah's advice, PACK LIGHT!
