Labor Day

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28 (NIV)

My husband believes that Labor Day is a day to labor. With a house, barn and lots of land, there is always some work waiting to be done. I thought it was smart to make plans to go horseback riding this morning. I figured I was getting out of work. When I rode off with my friends, he roused youngest son from bed and put him to work on the chain gang. That is the chain saw gang. After watching our trees bend and sway as Hurricane Gustav barely brushed our coast this weekend, husband decided it was time to trim the big oaks away from the house. After about an hour of sawing, he had so many limbs to cut up that it will take hours to haul it all away. As I rode my horse around the island enjoying the sunshine and cool breezes off the water, I envisioned the two of them taking care of the many piles of brush now surrounding our house. What I didn’t know was while I was gone, the chainsaw broke and youngest son took advantage of the opportunity to sneak off to his girlfriend’s family picnic leaving his dad high and dry and laboring alone. When I rode back into the yard, I was disappointed to see most of the work still left to do. But, I joined husband in loading a large trailer with limbs and logs. Once full, he used the tractor to transport the wood to a brush pile at the back of our property. We used to pile it up in the yard and burn it, but ever since the fire marshal moved in down the street, we don’t burn our brush anymore. The fines are too high if we get caught. As he drug the trailer to a new site behind the pasture fence, I walked behind him marveling. It appeared that an entire tree was slowly moving across the yard. Once at the back, we reversed the process and stacked it all in a huge pile. Then I climbed up onto the trailer and both dogs joined me as we rode back to the house to start all over again. The trip back is always much lighter, almost fun, and the dogs can’t wait for the trailer to be emptied so they can go for a ride. Even the horses came over to see what was going on. But, then, it was back to work, covering the trailer with limbs again, making another trip to the pile out back. As I returned home on the empty trailer with the dogs riding beside me, I thought about these verses. Sometimes, it seems that our labor is so heavy that we can hardly stand it. Yet, God sent His Own Son to walk beside us taking that weariness and heavy load from us when we give it over to Him. How about you? What’s filling your load? Empty it and ride through life in joy and peace.