Heavy burdens

Anyone feel like this guy? Anyone have heavy burdens. What are your burdens today. Can't pay your bills, marriage on the Fritz, any girls struggling with a teen pregnancy, what about pressure to have sex from a boyfriend? What about you guys struggling with sex or pornography how about peer pressure? Anyone being picked on at school or work? Anyone's life seem like a living hell, anyone asking the question: WHY?! why me, why this, why now.

Every one struggles, sometimes our burdens are heavier than at other times sometimes life seems unfair. I want to share a story of when I was in a leadership academy a few years back. We had been given a task, our task was to climb Pikes Peak, a 14,000 foot mountain just out side Colorado Springs, not only climb it but climb it as fast as we can. If ascending from an altitude of 9,000 to 14,000 feet was not difficult enough just to the fact that your going up 5000 feet (that's almost a mile straight up) add to it the fact that as you get higher and weaker the availability of oxygen becomes less and less, lets add again that we weren't going straight up but over a winding trail going over several miles uphill. Let me give you a clear picture. We started at 5 am no break feast, climbing up hill for over 4 hours in an environment that was cold and windy and every breath that I draw brings in less oxygen than the one before it. Living Hell. Quite literally I wanted to quit so bad, I wanted to rest just for a while. Why did I keep pressing on toward the goal. I was the pace setter. There was line of about 8 people behind me each one's hand grabbing the waist belt of the one in front of them, the buck stopped with me. I was grabbing on to no one. If I quite, they quite, but as long as I was moving forward they moved forward. It changes your perspective. When I quite 8 others would fail because I was not willing to take another step. I could not live with that fact. So I pressed on tell the summit where myself and the 8 behind me darn near collapsed but we had succeeded. Let me tell you another story. Jesus, Hanging on a cross. Talk about living hell. Nails in his hands and feet, back bare and raw, the wind whips and chills his unclothed body, blood runs down his face and into his eyes, voice raw with screams of pain, every dying breath more difficult than the one before. Agonizing waiting for the end. Living Hell. Why didn't Jesus quite, why not give up. Same reason I didn't, if he quits, we quite, if he fails we can no longer succeed. He knew his situation was temporary and that if he could only make it, it would make life better and easier than others. Bottom line is nothing in life is free if things are easy in your life it is because somebody else struggled to make it that way. I tell you this for those of you in a living hell, in a struggle, carrying a burden. Think of it this way somebody somewhere is counting on you and your story and your experiences if you quite, they quite, if you fail they can not succeed. Your struggle may prevent them from doing so. It changes your perspective. I hope I changed yours. Keep living the adventure and remember God never said it would be easy, just awesome.