My freshman year at Louisiana College was eye-opening on many levels.
Level 1: thinking I had signed up for a Christian college. In all actuality, what I signed up for was a strict Southern Baptist college. This wouldn’t be such a big deal/huge shock, if I wasn’t a devout Catholic (devout, not perfect).
I’m not going to get into the differences of Catholicism vs Protestantism because that’s beyond the scope of this blog post. But there are some specific phrases or “sayings” that I had never heard of until attending mandatory chapel.
A little backstory for those who aren’t Catholic: Catholic church follows a specific calendar that the entire Catholic faith uses. The priest doesn’t get to decide what to talk about that day, readings are selected that the entire faith hears that particular Sunday. The only thing that differs is how the priest presents the Homily, or his message on how to apply the readings to today.
Needless to say, attending chapel was a Level 2 eye opener for me. My freshman semester specifically was the hardest for me to stomach. I forget his name, but I called the preacher/speaker/whatever he was “Dr. Roman” because he could never seem to get out of the book of Romans. He had this one phrase in particular that drove me wild. I had never in my life heard someone say “carry your cross” and the fact that he said it 3454972 times that semester drove me CRAZY. “You gotta carry your cross to Calvary” (Calvary was again, not something this Catholic was use to hearing). After preaching for weeks about how we were not worthy of Jesus’ love/ hell,fire, and brimstone kind of preaching I tuned the guy out and chuckled every time someone said “carry your cross”.
Flash forward to now, 7 years later and I finally figured out he meant by “cross”.
I read this quote two weeks ago and it has been stuck in my brain ever since.
Hmm. What weighs me down that isn’t mine to carry? At the surface all that my mind could consider “weight” was the typical burdens everyone bears. Financial, work, home/family stress. Then I dug further.
One of my flaws is being critical about things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. I’ve gotten a lot better than I use to be, but here lately I catch myself saying things that sound overly opinionated and critical. If I see decor I don’t like I wonder “who would arrange things like that?” If I see a haircut I would never get I think “bless her heart, she ain’t got a clue”. If I see people acting a way I would never act I think “Lord have mercy these are some tacky-ass people”. Yes, Lord and ass in the same sentence because that’s the irony of my life.
Then I dug further. WHY do I even think critical thoughts in the first place? Why is MY way of arranging material possessions superior to someone else? This way of thinking was learned, I spent the majority of my young life laughing at the hilarious comments my mom would make regarding the way other people did things. Once I realized that the root cause was an external influence, it made me question my own thoughts and perspectives. Were my opinions solely my own, or was I “weighed down” by someone else’s opinion?
BOOM-SHA-KA-LA-KA!
Other people’s problems/decisions/opinions AIN’T MY CROSS. It’s theirs. They have to deal with the repercussions of their decisions, not me. Why waste my time being bothered by their decor/haircut/outfit when it ain’t my problem? Why am I worried about their “cross” and not focused on self development to carry my own?
It. Ain’t. My. Cross.
Now, when I catch myself being overly opinionated and critical I mentally mutter “ain’t my cross” and move on.
What’s weighing you down? Is it your cross or someone else’s?
Allison Chamberlin 