Carrying your cross

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debraran

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Hi, I wasn’t sure what forum to share this, but I thought someone might like it. I read it on Fr. Groechel’s site, “Franciscan Friars of the Renewal”. It is about carrying your cross and gave me pause.

A man had a dream one night, and during the dream he was complaining to the Lord about the particular crosses he had in his life. He felt they were too difficult and was asking the Lord to remove them. So the Lord told the man to follow Him and He would take him to a place where he could trade in the crosses he had for a different one. As they began to walk the Lord took the man into a room where there were thousands of different crosses of various sizes.

He looked around and could not imagine how anyone could carry some of the large crosses that he saw. Eventually, after walking for some time, he found two very small crosses. They were so small that it appeared that pieces of a larger cross had broken off and formed these small ones. The man smiled and turned to the Lord with great enthusiasm, “This is the one I want,” he said, “this is the one I can carry.” The Lord looked at him with compassion and said, “My son, I can’t give this one to you. This is the one you already have.”
 
Debraran:

Thanks for sharing that. Yikes! I know I’m guilty of that at times. Thanks for the reminder.
 
Lovely story - and I think we all are guilty of this sort of thinking at times.
 
Your timing with this was perfect–I’m having a little feel sorry for myself day. Thank you for sharing this!
 
Hee, you know, even a nontheist can relate to this one. Thanks! I feel this way every day – I have no knowledge of any god, yet why is my burden so light? It feels like the entire world and still only a feather. Maybe others wouldn’t call it easy, but I am always dancing in my heart, and hope you all are too.
 
You’re welcome, I know I have my “whiney” days too and reluctantly saw myself also. I think that sometimes priests should use stories like this, as Jesus did, to get things across more than just “straight preaching”.
 
Mirdath said:
Maybe others wouldn’t call it easy, but I am always dancing in my heart, and hope you all are too.
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I feel that way, too, which is really strange considering my circumstances. I won’t get into it, but DH and I are in the middle of something that makes a lot of people feel very deeply sorry for me (you can look in the Infertility thread for details), but I actually feel very good about my life. Yes I have my cross to bear, but like in the story, I see it as so much lighter than those of others.
 
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