I come to begin this new year by sharing the small burdens of my heart…
It has been little hobby for me to edit videos using windows movie maker – a fulfilling way to capture and reflect on life’s moments. As 2011 came to a close I thought of making a video. At first planned on using my own pictures which mostly consist of my family and nature, but as I became more drawn into the idea of this project, I considered that what lies outside my window and what takes place in the world daily is far more vast and profound than my pictures of relatives and various plants, flowers and bugs around my yard. So as I tend to do, I dove in head first to the project, collecting pictures from the web, thinking about songs that might work well, imagining the layout. I had the advantage of being off of work this whole past week so it seemed a great adventure for my vacation time!
I had started my “Spielburgian” adventure quite well – I found myself profoundly struck and awed in reflecting on all that has taken place in our world over the course of the past 12 months – but I became a bit stuck midweek bringing it together. I sat in bed one night driving my poor husband crazy as I played endless songs on my computer trying to find just the right one. He is accustomed to my creative drive taking over all sense of time and schedule. It wasn’t until New Years Eve that I kicked my movie production back into high gear! – and boy I mean high gear. It was as if my physical body was burdened with the need to complete this project. I did the needed chores around the house during the day and then planted myself at the dining room table in the late afternoon. And there I stayed….clipping, filing, importing, editing, captioning. I considered several times wrapping things up and retiring. Midnight came and went but the only thing that got more wrapped up was me, in this project. Before I knew it, it was dawn and the early birds in our house were waking. Each time I thought of stopping, some piece of this past years recent history would captivate me as I considered the faces and places and experiences that we all share. I began to see that what I thought were heavy burdens for me this past year were nothing as compared to what others around the world suffer daily.
I worked all through New Year’s day today, determined to finish this project. My family was truly thinking by this point, that I had gone a bit nuts. We all shared a delicious dinner together and I was just left to wrap things up. I eagerly returned to my laptop, opened my project file, and found that my work had completely disappeared!! My husband tried to be encouraging and said “you can do it again”, to which I emphatically responded “no, I can’t!”
Praise God that there was a way to restore a previous version of my project and after tweaking my computer settings I was able to do so. The unfortunate thing is that all of the work I had done since last night had not been saved on the previous version. Still all of my files remained imported so all my work was not lost.
Lessons learned: God gives us small burdens in our heart. He does it to all of us. He pricks our heart and says “do this” “reach out in this way” “take a risk”. We are wise to listen to Him, but when we turn those small burdens into major endeavors of super-human strength it is simply our pride getting in the way of His plan. And when we don’t do things according to His plan, our efforts amount to very little.
So it is with this small burden upon my heart I begin this blog. I have long wanted to start one and well, if not now, then when?
So here is part 1 of my reflection of 2011. It is my hope that it will touch your heart in some way as it has touched mine.
Stay tuned in for part 2!
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