Maximum load...

I can feel when we've both reached maximum capacity.

We get snarky, easily irritated, easily offended.

We're weary in well-doing.

Our shoulders are hunched from bearing the burdens of the people, their hurt, pain, brokenness, and yes, even disobedience.

Then there's the burden of our own frail humanity on top of that, the knowledge of our own inadequacies and mistakes, our own sinful nature.

We're just not enough, never enough.

That's when I'm like David, wanting wings like a bird so I can fly away and be at rest.

Sometimes, I think about how life would be different not in the ministry.

Not knowing people's problems and issues.

Not feeling their pain.

Not bearing their burdens.

Not fearing that we're somehow failing them.

Just a normal, ordinary life, going to a job you can actually walk away from after eight hours.

Living wherever we wanted to live.

I choose the beach.

A life by the sea is where I escape to in my dreams, a life where it's just about us and not about others.

So, with no vacation in sight until after the new church building is complete, we run away for just a day.

We run away to the sea.

He always meet me there, by the sea.

I think He's especially fond of it too.

He always reminds me of His greatness there.

He reminds me that the burdens I bear for others aren't meant for me to carry.

I've been forgetting to cast them off of my shoulders and on to His.

The biggest one, the most burdensome, is the burden of us.

Our own failures and mistakes, our own inadequacies, our not enough-ness…

not smart enough, wise enough, loving enough, for this job He's given us to do.

Our weakness, I've got to cast that one onto His shoulders too.

He knew what He was getting into when He chose us.

There, walking by the sea, he reminds me of His greatness and His great ability to take care of it all.

On the car ride home we listen to old school Don Potter.

And this song reminds me that I'm a prisoner of love.

I'm reminded that I am bought with a price beyond compare and that my life is not my own.

I'm reminded that from the time I was a little girl I knew I was called for more than an ordinary nine to five life.

I was called to follow Him, no matter how rough the path may be.

I was called to live a laid down life, a life of love and service.

I choose yes, I say yes again.

On that car ride home, leaving the sea behind me, leaving my fantasy life behind me,

I say yes.

Still following,

Elizabeth