Why is the weight of my troubles so heavy?

I learned something very interesting today :)

And guess what! While I was looking for a picture to illustrate what I'm about to tell, I clicked on the website, and coincidently the picture was from a blog that talks about the exact same story I was about to tell! xD

Perfect right? But I guess I'll try to tell it with my own words xD

So guys, look at the picture below of a hand holding a glass of water. How heavy do you think is the glass plus the water? 100g? 200g? 400g?

Well, it doesn't really matter how heavy it is. It's probably not that heavy anyway. Imagine you holding the cup of water. It's not heavy right? Especially if you start drinking the water, it's pretty refreshing isn't it?

But what if you hold on to that glass for 15 minutes? Hm, still okay. 

What if you hold it for half an hour? Tired and aching hand!

What if you hold it for the whole day?? I think my hand would be paralysed by then!

The point of this analogy is that, the glass of water is still the same weight, but the longer you hold on to it, the heavier it is!

The same goes with our troubles. By troubles, I mean things like stress, worries, anxious thoughts, negative thoughts, and so many other things that may burden our life. The longer you hold on to it, the heavier it becomes. Whereas if we allow ourselves to put down the water, it wouldn't be so bad. We can then hold it and deal with the problem when we've recovered from the tiredness.

This story really made me realize how true that is. And I hope that it helps you guys as well. 

From my own experience, I used to be so very self conscious about my looks when I was younger. I used to worry all the time about what people think. Then I had eczema, and that just made it worse. Because everyday would be a burden to walk out there with an ugly skin! But after a while, I learned to put down my self consciousness. I tried to think of other stuff other that how I look. Because at the end of the day, looks are not the most important thing in your life! So I'm pretty thankful that I got the eczema. Because I learned to put down the burdens of negative body image, instead of letting it run around my mind, getting heavier and heavier.

And these days, I have a lot of stress in my mind. Not just eczema. But listening to this analogy this morning, really help me to put down my stress, step back, and slowly resolve the problem instead of just stressing!

For those doing exams: Good luck guys! And don't stress too much. Study well instead :)

For those who aren't doing exams but are having troubles in your mind, learn to put it down for a moment and don't let it dominate your thoughts. :)

Inspired by Pdt Didik Tridjatmiko's sermon