Bag of Bones

Alex and I bought the newest Jars of Clay album last Tuesday when it was released and this past Tuesday they had a surprise concert at Bethel College. Awesome!

There is one particular song on the new album that I have been singing in my head over and over again this whole week. The chorus has the following lyrics:

"Why carry on our own, what's coming to all men?
Why drag a bag of bones to Hell and back again?
Look around,
Lay it down."

And those lyrics keep putting this mental picture in my head that is both inspiring and disturbing, because I keep seeing myself trudging through a black and desolate landscape, dragging a bag full of bones - some of them mouldy and yellow with age, and some of them still holding flesh and blood, and each of them representing a past emotional or spiritual injury.

I know, I'm kind of morbid. It is drawing near to Halloween. I tend to see more disturbing things in my mind's eye around this time of year. I blame the media.

To tell the truth, what bothers me the most is the desire to continue dragging that bag of bones around! How many of us know that we need to forgive others for wrong-doings against us? We know all the sage advice about turning the other cheek and love your enemies and blah blah blah. At least, you know all this if you were raised in church like I was. But I have known more women in my short lifetime who are dragging around a bag of bones that is getting to be too heavy for them!

I am a small person - one of those people who was tiny and fragile from day one, who turned into the tiny and fragile runt of the kindergarten and elementary school classes. I was easy to bully because I couldn't fight back. I'm sorry to say that my parents had to pull me out of public school when I was in 2nd grade because a teacher found it easier to bully me than deal with her own personal problems. I was bullied in Christian schools too - from people who were pastors' children, people who should have known better. I could easily say that everything wrong with me is a direct result of bullying and intimidation from growing up. That's a crutch that gives me an excuse for almost everything! I should just keep dragging that bag of bones around!

OR --

I could choose to drop that bag of bones and be free! Free to be the beautiful woman God has called me to be. Free to live, free to dance, free to enjoy life and free to forget those past hurts caused by ignorant, foolish, prideful, selfish people and realize that this life is far too short to allow the sins of other to affect my personal well-being.

Drop the bag of bones. It's not worth it to carry those old things until death.