Friday, September 28, 2012

The Lifted Burden

"When we become a burden to ourselves, when we don't want to keep on going, when we are afraid of the mountain lying in front of us, when guilt feelings weigh down heavily on our mind, when we feel we have been lied to and victimized by the world, then we need only one thing - we need a person whom we can fully trust without reservation, a person who understands everything, hears everything, a person who bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, forgives all things. We need a person to whom we can say: 'You are rest, you are gentle peace, you are the longing and the one who stills it' (Ruckert). We need a person under whose eyes our suffering disappears and out heart opens up in silent love, a person who gently takes our burden from us and frees us from our fits of rage and from all our fears. In so doing, this person delivers our soul from the world... Now the greatest of all miracles is that every individual has and can find this person because this person calls each of us to himself on his own initiative, offers himself, invites us. This person who is our rest, our peace, our refreshment, and our deliverance, is Jesus Christ alone. He alone is truly human. And in this true humanity he is God."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom, 235-36

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