On Friday Morning, an Umbrella I Hadn't Used All Week Turned Up in My Bag

On Friday morning, before heading out, I unzipped my bag and found a folding umbrella. I had put it in on Monday after seeing a forecast of rain, and since then not a single drop had fallen. So I had carried it on my shoulder all week. The button on the strap around it was still fastened exactly as I had left it on Monday, never undone once.

While I was at it, I took everything out of the bag. A book I hadn't read, a power bank I had never used, a few crumpled receipts, and assorted odds and ends I had packed just in case. At the very bottom were cookie crumbs I couldn't remember spilling and a tangled earphone cord. Counting it up, half of the bag was things that were there “just in case.” No wonder my shoulder had been sore all week. Laying everything out on the entryway floor, the only things I had actually touched this week were my wallet and my keys.

It seemed the bag wasn't the only thing like that. Packing up things that haven't happened yet and carrying them around in my head is an old habit of mine. What if that question comes up in the meeting, what if there's no reply to that email. Things that never get used and only add weight. Last night, too, before falling asleep, I had run through today several times in advance, and hardly any of it had actually happened that way.

Words for setting down what I was gripping

While putting on my shoes at the door, I opened still().

Cast your burden on the LORD and he will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be moved.

Psalm 55:22 (WEB)

“Cast.” My eyes stayed on that word for a while. I read it not as telling me to do nothing, but as telling me to try setting down, just once, what I had been gripping. And “he will sustain you” read to me as saying that there is someone who holds me up in the place where I set it down. Reading this verse doesn't make today's work any smaller. The meeting is still there, and so are the emails I have to send. Still, just knowing there is a sentence saying I don't have to carry the whole load myself, my shoulders came down a little. Entrusting, it seemed to me, was less like forgetting and more like opening a clenched hand. When I looked at my palm, the red mark left by the umbrella handle was still there.

I left the umbrella on top of the shoe cabinet, took the book out too, and left. With a lighter bag, my steps felt a little lighter. Before closing the door I looked back, and the umbrella on the shoe cabinet looked rather comfortable. In the elevator mirror, my shoulders sat a hand's breadth lower than before. I thought: if it rains, I'll get wet then.

Today's breath — Before you put your bag on, let the tension go from your shoulders and breathe out slowly once.