Excuse me sir, could you help me with my baggage?

I took a trip to Florida a couple weeks ago… I also took along a 66 lb. suitcase. 66 seems pretty precise right? It is. They weighed it at the airport and charged me an extra $50 because it was grotesquely overweight. If it had been flying on the plane instead of under the plane, they would have referred to it as a customer of size. I really thought I was doing everyone (and by everyone, I mean my male traveling companions) a favor by cramming all of my necessities into one bag versus several. Obviously I had no intention of being the one to cart that beast all over Florida! Aside from the overweight baggage charge, my “Excuse me sir, could you help me with my baggage?” plan worked out splendidly… until I got home…



As it turns out, it hadn’t really occurred to me that while I had strapping manly men to help me with my baggage as I gallivanted across the country, I was on my own when I got back home. As I sat at the top of the stairs cursing my 66 lb. suitcase, I began to think about a different kind of baggage… the emotional kind. It’s no fun either. I’ll admit it, I’ve got some baggage… and don’t even think about pretending you don’t have a nice set of baggage too! Emotional baggage is messy, painful, and tricky to handle. Really, the best we can do is hope that those who love us will learn to accept our baggage… and in return, we should accept theirs. When you think about it, that nice set of baggage is part of what makes you who you are and vice versa. Most of our baggage is filled up with things like heartbreak, regret, anger, distrust, jealously, secrets, and pretty much every other ugly thing you can think of to cram inside those bags and hide. Here’s where it gets tricky… you can’t let all of those ugly things from your past ruin your future. You can’t refuse to love again because you’ve had your heart broken. You can’t refuse to trust others because you’ve been betrayed. You can’t be jealous when you haven’t been given a reason. What you can do… what you MUST do… is try to accept your baggage, learn your lesson, and move on into the future fearlessly. The things inside that baggage hurt you once. Don’t let them continue to hurt you over and over again by damaging new relationships and filling you with fear and doubt. Life is scary. Life is also an incredible adventure so don’t let your baggage get in the way of allowing you to share that incredible adventure with people you love. When you trust in God’s plan it all starts to come together. Then, it is as simple as asking for help… God will take care of the baggage for you. He’s awesome like that… and He won’t charge you an overweight baggage fee which is pretty generous of Him considering how much baggage we manage to accumulate!