Laying Burdens at His Feet in Rocky Mount

This photo shows a street in Rocky Mount, Virginia.

By Steve Crain

On a recent rainy Thursday around 6:00 p.m., I arrived at The Comfort Inn in Rocky Mount, Virginia.

“One night,” I said to the clerk, as she checked for my reservation. “What do you have for Friday night, if I need to stay over?”

“I have a few smoking rooms,” she said.

Nearby Ferrum College was hosting a “parents weekend,” so motel rooms were scarce.

“I’ll wait and see,” I said, hoping I could okay colors needing my approval within a 10-hour stint on Friday at Ronile, a Rocky Mount yarn-dyeing plant. A few years ago, Ronile owners bought Gulistan, the Aberdeen, N.C., carpet-manufacturing company I work for.

I took my bags from the charcoal-colored Dodge Dakota truck rented in Southern Pines, where my wife, Carol, and I live, and limped to the room. My surgeon said that on a scale of one to 10 – 10 being bad – my left hip was a nine. I faced replacement surgery in a few days and felt like the guy who quipped, “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.”

I had my right hip replaced in 2002 and also have lower back problems. “Lord,” I thought, “am I going to be able to ‘get around’ in old age? Will I deal with daily pain?”

A pastor once told me, “People talk about the ‘Golden Years,’ but there’s a lot of brass in those years.”

I called Carol. Despite hardships she’s experienced in life, she is amazingly positive and helps me steer away from melancholy tendencies. Carol gave encouragement and said, “We have to trust the Lord.”

I went to the motel vending machine for M&M’s. I figured I should have lost 50 pounds before my hip operation, but surgery was a few days away and a few more M&M’s probably wouldn’t matter. A thin young fellow standing nearby bought a Mountain Dew and said, “I need a few vending machines to make some money. I stayed one place where drinks were $1.50.”

“It’s tough,” I said, wondering why he wanted what appeared to be a safety pin stuck through his left eyebrow.

Back in the room, I found a Republican presidential-candidates TV debate. Nine politicians were answering questions. Some gave President Obama “down the road” for what they called “socialist tendencies,” and some lashed out at each other: Romney and Perry squared off; Michele Bachmann attacked Perry; Herman Cain sounded sensible; Ron Paul seemed to want the U.S. to mind its own business.

Political stuff began whirling in my head, and rain was still falling outside. I tried to lay my burdens at the Lord’s feet. I’ve voiced that prayer many times. I guess I’m like the fellow who was walking and carrying a heavy sack on his back. A man driving a horse and wagon overtook him and asked, “Want a ride?”

“Sure,” the man said. He settled on the wagon seat beside the driver but kept his sack on his shoulders.

After a mile or so, the driver said to the man, “Why don’t you put that sack on the floor of the wagon?”

The burdened man said, “You were good enough to give me a ride. I can’t expect you to carry my baggage, too.”

I guess the Lord wonders about us that same way. We say we want him as Savior, but can’t seem to let him carry our burdens.

On Friday morning, the rain was still falling, though not as much as during the previous day. I started thinking, again, about things beyond my control but began counting some blessings, too.

After breakfast in the motel lobby, I checked out at 7:30 a.m. and headed to see colored yarns at Ronile. Driving through gray mist, I thought about the Lord’s goodness and about how worrying couldn’t add a single hair to my head. I wondered why I seemed so much like Peter. He saw the Lord walking on water and approaching him and the other disciples as they maneuvered a boat on a troubled Sea of Galilee. Peter wanted to walk to Jesus, so he asked, and Jesus said it’d be okay. Peter got out of the boat and began walking, but he looked around and set his eyes on the waves more than on Jesus. He started to sink; Jesus had to take Peter’s hand and save him.

“Why am I like that?” I asked the Lord. Why do I seem to be anchored in the Faith and then start worrying about circumstances and situations? Why do I take my eyes off you and look at the waves?”

“It’s human nature,” the Lord seemed to say to my heart. “It’s human nature.”