Life With a Heavy Soul

My soul is a heavy one. Maybe all souls are heavy, and we just carry them differently. Maybe some people can handle it better than others. Maybe some people hide it because they think souls are supposed to be light. Maybe some souls actually are light. I don't really know, you see, because I am not carrying others' souls in this body. The only thing I know for sure is that mine is like lead. 

Which, obviously, makes no sense. Because wow, my life is good. Don't think I don't know that. I've never lacked what I need; I've never been unwanted or unloved. Heartache isn't something I'm overly familiar with. I come from a cute little family that lives a quiet, happy life and never rocks the boat for fear of making waves. We are simple, but we are grand. In my opinion.

So then why do I feel like my soul is weighing me down when I get up to face each day? If I come from a happy life, shouldn't I have a happy soul? If Jesus died for all my human insufficiencies, shouldn't His sacrifice be sufficient for my soul? Why does my soul cry when logic says she should be singing?

"If you go outside and see the blue sky as black, people can tell you that it's all in your head, that it isn't real, that it's actually so much better than you can see. But that doesn't change the fact that your sky is black." My friend said that to me recently, and I was left speechless in the wake of its truth. I can tell people about my heavy soul, and they can try their best to explain it or even negate it. But the bottom line is that I feel what I feel. 

My soul, she's heavy. That is a fact of my life. Even on my good days, which are punctuated with laughter and joy, there is a vignette of aching sadness. My heart can be happy, but my soul will still be heavy. I see this life playing out as if I’m looking at it through a window. I am in this world, but my soul knows she is not of it.

I think maybe we're all kind of this way. I think people are sad. I think souls are heavy. And I think we don't want to admit that. Because if I have a heavy soul, it must mean that something is wrong. I must not have enough or I must not be enough. I need to do something different, to be someone different, so that my soul can be as light as the air.

But that's not true.

We are souls who long for something more. We are souls who are weighed down by this world. We are souls who ache deeply for reasons we sometimes cannot explain.

And do you know what? It's okay. Seriously. It is.

My soul doesn't need to be light on her toes all the time. She doesn't have to turn a blind eye to her own heartbreak. She doesn't have to pretend to be someone she's not. I am learning that a heavy soul is not synonymous with a bad soul.

Is it awful sometimes, this heavy soul? Yes. Do I wish for a lighter one? Very much, yes—almost every day. Do I think that something is wrong with me because sometimes I stumble under her weight? Absolutely not. Do I think my heavy soul is a punishment for something I can't identify? Oh, my goodness no.

I think David had a heavy soul when he was running for his life for all those years, and yet his Psalms from that time are some of the most beautiful words ever written. I think Paul had a heavy soul when he was imprisoned and persecuted, and yet his missionary journeys are the reason we have the Gospel today. I think Job had a heavy soul when the devil took everything from him, and yet his faith in God is one of the greatest stories of the Old Testament. I think a lot of us, in our own worlds with our own demons and our own trials, have heavy souls. And yet here we are, Children of Light.

I'm living my life with a soul that is heavy. So heavy that sometimes I can't bear even the thought of getting out of bed.

But I get out of bed anyway. Because Jesus is holding my soul, and He is whispering promises of better days—maybe not in this lifetime, but better all the same.

And whenever I get out of my bed on those days where heaviness is all I can feel, I hear something else, too. The song of my heart in the face of my aching, a salve for my bleeding thoughts:

"Even so, it is well with my soul."