Filling My Suitcase | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Filling My Suitcase | Previous Challenge Entry
By Lisa Hudson
02/14/18
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Filling My Suitcase

I watched timidly as my parents yelled at one another. I had seen it all before, but it hurt just the same. I learned how to keep those feelings inside, but I know they had to go somewhere. Over time I stored away these painful memories, hoping I could forget them once and for all.

After one more time of my father being gone for days on end, drinking himself into oblivion, no doubt, my parents decided to divorce. I was relieved that the yelling might stop, but I couldn’t deny that I felt like I had been ripped in half. I found my baggage from before, and stored these hurts and tears away. The baggage was growing, to be sure.

As a teenager, not only was I full of insecurities and suffered from plain-Jane loneliness, but I became a parent to my mother who was suffering from deep depression following the divorce. The resentment I felt toward her overflowed, and the pain from never seeing my father ran deep, so I learned to suppress my feelings of anger with drugs and alcohol. You guessed it… I shoved those feelings into the ever-increasing baggage I was storing away.

My early twenties are a bit of blur. I was trying to prove to the world I had it all together, yet I was a wreck and wasn’t handling life very well at all. I managed to survive, even seeking professional counseling, but my baggage was really heavy. One bad choice after another added to the load that I was carrying. I prayed to the God that I did not yet know. He was about to answer my prayers.

I met a good and decent man, and I married him. I brought my baggage into our marriage, and he brought his. Together, as well as bringing three children into the world, we created new baggage and probably provided some baggage for our kids. We have been sorting out our baggage for nearly thirty-years now. We’ve worked through some of it, tossed out most of it. We’ve even taken on more baggage recently, and we’re working through it all, by the grace of God.

I have been tempted to run away, more times than I care to admit. I’ve seen more than my share of sorrows, but I choose to remain. I made promises to those I care about and love. I made promises to my Father. I continue to stand at the foot of the cross, my suitcase in hand, ready for when I’m called home. It is then, and only then, when I’ll finally be baggage free. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

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