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Losing the Weight
By Rebecca Newton
November 21, 2005

Preparing for her wedding and a move to Alaska from her childhood home in Southern California, my friend Elizabeth faces the decision of what to pack. She and her new husband will fly to their new home in Anchorage, and Elizabeth will be taking only what will fit into two bags—clothes, a few journals and books, mementos, and small things to make their little apartment feel like home.

My friend is a writer. A writer treasures writing and is often torn to part with a scrap of paper containing words.  Among Elizabeth’s treasures are correspondents’ letters and her own writings and stories. As she packs up her girlhood for life as Jonathan’s wife, Elizabeth realizes she must part with some of these relics: they serve no practical purpose and will never fit in her suitcases. As painful as it may be to her, she knows she must lay these things aside for a nobler goal.  “…Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before…” (Philippians 3:13).

Weights are used in training exercises, but if we clutch them in the race, they will impede our progress. Good habits, enjoyable hobbies, worthwhile activities and relationships may fall among the “weights” that hinder us from running the course God has chosen. These are good things, just not beneficial to us. My pastor likens them to a bucket of rocks. Carrying a bucket of rocks in a race isn’t against the rules, but imagine lugging one in the Relay for Life! Just as Elizabeth must make the choice of what “good” things she must leave behind, we, too, sometimes must decide to get rid of some otherwise “good” things so that we have time to spend with God.

“…Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith…” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

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© 2005, Rebecca Newton

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Rebecca Newton attends Truth Tabernacle UPC in Bartlesville, OK pastored by Roy L. Moss. Currently an assistant in commercial auto underwriting, she participated in the first deployment of the Apostolic Youth Corps (2004) and dreams of a life in missions where writing letters and living out of a suitcase will be the norm.