It’s a beautiful spring day. There is a rough, weather-worn cross at the top of a grassy but otherwise empty hill, surrounded by a lush, dense forest. A dirt path leads from the forest, winding up the hill to the cross and at the foot of the cross there lies a large millstone, with a rope tied around it through the center.
Next to the millstone there is an 8-year old boy. His clothes are dirty, ripped and frayed. One little sneaker is worn through and barely holding together while the other one obviously went missing some time ago. He is bruised in several places and bleeding in others. Dirt and leaves are stuck in his hair. His shirt, what’s left of it, is worn almost through the center where the other end of the rope from the millstone was, obviously for a long time, secured around his waist. The boy is kneeling with his head bowed in reverent and penitent prayer. A single tear rolls down his dirt-smudged cheek as he prays, “I’m sorry.”
The sun breaks through the puffy clouds and shines on the cross, the boy, and the stone he’s been dragging for, it seems, his entire life. A warm, tender voice answers, “You have done wonderfully, my son. You can leave that right where it lies. I’ll take it from here.”
Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
1 Peter 5:7 “...casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
Psalm 55:22 “Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.”