Saturday, August 5, 2017

Burdens or Blessings

This morning, my Mom and I were given a thoughtful gift: a wagonload of largish rocks. These rocks had been sitting in a neighbor's yard for quite some time, and she was actually rather eager for an opportunity to be rid of them. But my mother and I, along with the rest of the family, have been working on a landscaping project which involves a considerable number of rocks, and we were grateful to get a few more. While it may seem unkind to pass one's burdens off on another, I consider it fairly kind of our neighbor to offer us her unwanted rocks. Those rocks, which were a burden to her, were a blessing to us.

I wonder if this phenomenon repeats itself elsewhere in the gospel. Sins are a burden, but I don't think Jesus considered it a "blessing" when He took our sins upon Himself. There are instances where something that is considered to be a burden turns out to be a blessing to those who bear them. For example, service opportunities can seem burdensome, but if we take advantage of those opportunities, they become create blessings for us, but that's not quite what I'm looking for. I wonder if there is something in the gospel that is an actual burden to one person, but that, upon transfer, becomes a blessing to another.

I currently can't think of any burden mentioned in the scriptures or the gospel that becomes a blessing for another person. Perhaps I'll come up with something and add it to this blog post later, but right now, I'm too tired and not attuned enough to the Spirit to come up with a good example. For now, I guess this is just a lesson on perspectives. Sometimes, something that's a burden for us now can become a blessing for someone else, including possibly our future selves. So, let us be patient when it comes to our spiritual burdens. We may later find that these burdens were intended to become a blessing, for either someone else or our future selves, so perhaps we shouldn't become too upset when we receive burdens. It's possible that those things which are burdens to us could become blessings to others, if only we have the courage to share.

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