“Mommy, I Too Little.”

We were in the laundry room together–sorting, washing, drying, and folding. Every week on Wednesday, we spend some of our morning in the midst of this ritual. And almost every single time, I hear him ask of me, “Mommy, I help you?” And every single time, I respond without fail, “Yes, yes! Of course you can. I would love to have a helper.” And right away, he sets his face to the task ahead. Sometimes he finishes it and sometimes not, but never has he spoken the words he spoke today.

In response to his weekly, Wednesday question, I told him that he could help me by putting the wet laundry into the dryer. And as usual, he set to work.

But within minutes, he looked up at me with big eyes and a sigh as big as those eyes and said, “Mommy, I too little for this.”

Immediately, my breath caught and tears formed because it hadn’t just been an hour before when I had received a call from my husband, letting me know that insurance denied our claim and the price tag on our plumbing fix would be 18K+. Along with that hefty price tag, we would need to remove furniture in 1-3 rooms, along with the brand new flooring that we had just placed in our home not even a year ago, and we would need to find another place to live for 4-6 days while the demo occurred. There are a bunch of other logistical details that probably don’t matter (like a vacation coming up and two scheduled birthday parties in the next few weeks) but suffice to say, the burden is big.

In fact, I had just texted one of my sister-friends and uttered almost the same words my son had said, “This is much too big for me to hold and handle, and so I can’t.”

Just like my son with a basket full of wet laundry, the burden was too big; the ask too large. He couldn’t do it by himself, and he knew it.

And neither can I.

And maybe not you either?

Friends, I don’t know what burden you’re bearing or what basket that sits in front of you, but I can imagine that some of them feel too big to bear and too heavy to lift. I imagine that some of those burdening baskets feel much too overwhelming, too unfixable, and maybe even much too hopeless.

And we could do what I (and maybe you, too) often attempt– a grandiose “go” on our own, a heave and a ho, and a whole lot of muscling in our own strength. Or we could do the very simple and humble thing that my two-year old son did, we could lay it down, acknowledge our need, and leave it to the arms who can.

As Elisabeth Elliot so perfectly defines it in her book, Suffering is Never for Nothing, “Suffering is having what you don’t want or wanting what you don’t have.” Or in laundry words, it’s having the things in our baskets that we DON’T want and CAN’T carry and NOT having the things in our baskets that we DO want and CAN carry.

Those money problems with that bank account? Those relationships with those people? That health prognosis with that diagnosis? That child with those problems and that ‘tude? That job with that boss? That deadline for that amount of work? That marriage with that man and that baggage? That church with those sinners and those songs ?

Too big and too much for little us.

As Spurgeon writes in Morning and Evening, “Perhaps, you distressed soul, the Lord is doing this to develop your graces. Some of your graces would never be discovered if it were not for your trials. Don’t you know that your faith never looks as grand in summer weather as it does in winter?…Afflictions are often the black background in which God sets the jewels of His children’s graces, to make them shine better.”

It’s hard to understand the why of how He uses sufferings, and we often bristle at His burden-gracing, but the reality is…He uses suffering to gift us with His graces. Those sovereignly-allowed and even sovereignly-placed burdens are growing a grace and gaining a godliness that is most-often not understood and most-certainly not usually welcomed. Because let’s eloquently say it for what it is, SUFFERING SUCKS.

And because we aren’t an infinite God with an infinite plan, we don’t usually choose suffering as the mode. But because He is the Savior, He does (and has).

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 16:24-25

“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” 2 Corinthians 4:17

So what was the grace for our little guy? Maybe it was recognizing that he had a helper–a mama who would bear his burden, a mama who remain with him in the lifting, and a mama who would teach and grow him along the way.

And the grace for us?

Much the same.

We have One who bears our burdens with us–One who remains near in our struggles and who longs for us to run to Him for refuge, rescue, and real-present help with our burden-filled baskets. Friends, the pruning can’t happen without the presence of a pruner. For as He cuts, He holds. As He shapes, He stays. And as He prunes, He remains. For truly, He cannot prune without His presence.

So today, tonight, and tomorrow…may we rest in the hard-fast truth that our burdens are too big; we are too little; and yet He is NOT.