"God/dess fits the back to the burden."
___ Scots proverb
Whether great or small, burdens fall. We may feel that we do not deserve our particular fate, that some spiritual credit must be stored up somewhere that will remit our burden. If this Scots proverb were written the other way around - that God/dess fits the burden to the back - perhaps we would feel better about the whole sorry business; but it is not. When burdens fall upon us, we cannot shift responsibility for them; they are indeed ours to carry. But our carrying power is something we cannot know until we try. Certainly there are many who have sunk under the strain into the distress of physical or nervous breakdown.
We can prepare our back for heavy responsibilities by bearing the strain with fortitude and human resourcefulness, by not giving up but seeking better and more effective ways. The most effective of those ways, the greatest help in fitting our back to carry whatever has befallen us, is simple beseeching, asking help of our most powerful spiritual sources to open the ways to possibility, to enable fresh perspectives that take the doggedness from our step, to bring the balm that will draw out our pain. Neither the good, the bad, nor the fortunate are spared from the burdens of life, but we can find ways of coping if we ask for help.
"Whatever burdens you are carrying, leave them at the end of your bed before you sleep, entrusting them to your spiritual allies and asking for help to take them up with better heart on the morrow."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
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