Would You Like A Life Without Baggage?

I am fresh off an actual in-person conference and it felt like writer’s cramp and a sore face. I haven’t taken notes in two years, not by hand. Those muscles mounted a mutiny. And my laugh-out-loud-until-it-hurts muscles? They needed to be flexed more than I knew.

In one workshop, my friend Mary DeMuth pressed her class attendees to describe what we offer to readers that’s unique. “I help readers set bags down that God didn’t ask them to carry,” I said.

Mary quipped, “Oh, so you’re a baggage handler.” The class laughed, and the silly side of my heart did, too. The fiction writer next to me leaned over and whispered, “You could be a bag lady.” Oh, how I needed writer friends who get my life and help me not take it seriously. Oh, how I needed a hand that hurts and a heart that’s full.

Baggage handler. It’s growing on me and so I’ll ask you: Are you carrying heavy bags that once and for all you’d like to set down? Regret? Betrayal? Dysfunction? A hurt, a choice, or a bottle you hide? Would you like a life without all the baggage?

Of course, I can’t actually handle your luggage. If I was the one who pried your white knuckles open, you’d miss the joy of Jesus setting you free. But I can tell you a hands-free life is nothing to be afraid of.

Just because you know how bags feel in your hands doesn’t mean you were meant to carry them.

It’s not easy. Your muscles might mount a mutiny. They might spasm and flinch toward the same old, familiar grip. But here’s what happened when I quit lugging a lifetime of baggage around. It freed up my hands. To worship. To serve. To write. And to massage my face muscles when they hurt from laughing too hard. 

I like a hands-free life better. Take it from a bag lady, you will too.