Today was summertime hot and things wilted, including me. Didn’t do much pondering in the swing after I filled the bird feeders, washed and filled the bird baths, watered all the vegetables and my flower garden and my porch flowers, and then risked my life bending over to search the massive zucchini plant for any squash. I just know Balthazar, my resident king snake, is disguised under there as a zucchini.

My daddy was pulling up peanuts in his garden one summer and almost picked up a rattle snake. He killed it and it filled a #10 washtub. The Roanoke Leader made a photo of him for the newspaper and titled it “The Peanut Picking Probate Judge.” I have that photo from the newspaper in a frame but it’s packed up in some boxes of photos I haven’t unpacked from my home in Alexander City.

There’s probably all kinds of snakes in the bamboo forest. I warned some teenagers, who were walking around back there, they better watch out for snakes. They said they saw a mother garter snake with babies. And I asked if they saw her friend, the rattle snake, and his friend, the copperhead snake. They haven’t visited the bamboo since that day.

Sunset was a brief affair today. Mother Nature started a fiery orange wildfire and before it could blaze up and catch the sun the cloud cover snuffed out the fire. The sun and Father Sky walked down the sunset stage runway behind a soft curtain of pale creamy clouds. Twilight turned off the day, turned on the fireflies, and the darkness woke the moon and stars.

Been reading quotes all day. Came across a few I liked enough to mark the page with a scrap of paper. “Ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders,” Jewish Proverb. Burdens are things in our lives that are very difficult to accept or to deal with. We all have times in our lives when our burdens are just too heavy to carry alone. God will take those burdens off your shoulders and transfer them to his. His “broad” shoulders can carry the tiniest of worries to the heaviest of life’s complications. My mother was always telling me God doesn’t give us more than we can carry. I’d complain and say my load was too heavy to carry and that I was stumbling around. She’d always remind me that God was walking beside me helping me carry the weight.

Sometimes we have to wait patiently for God to help us carry the load. Sometimes we have to wait for God to show us where to put down the load we’re carrying. Sometimes we have to pray on blended knee to transfer the weight to God’s shoulders. Think God’s not helping you, look for his footsteps in the sand. Listen to the last stanza from the poem Footprints in the Sand by Mary Stevenson — The Lord replied: “My precious child, I love you and would never leave you during your times of trial and suffering. When you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.” I think that’s a beautiful sentiment. God has helped me up, walked beside me, and carried me and my troubles many times.

Psalm 55:22 reads, “Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.” We can cast our cares on the Lord’s shoulder and he will give us peace. God also want us to help others with their burdens. Galatians 6:2 says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Just sincerely listening and sympathizing with someone can removed the weight of their burdens and give them peace.

There are so many things in our life that weigh us down, so many things that are inevitable and out of our control. God allows us to struggle to bring us closer to him. We can pray for peace in our lives and through our prayers and thanksgiving put our worries in God’s hands. Philippians 4:6-7 reads, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

With sincere prayer and trust in God’s grace, our faith can turn our struggles over to God. We don’t have to carry our burdens alone. God will give us peace.

“The burden becomes light that is shared by love.” — Ovid