A woman walks along the surf's edge, a tattered plastic grocery bag in one hand, bulging with sea sponges, pieces of orange coral and seashells. It looks like soon the handles will break. Her other hand is busy holding a giant sea sponge. In spite of her hands being full, her bag bursting, and clearly nowhere else to store beach treasures, the woman continues to cast her eyes downward and search for more. How she will carry any other items, we do not know, but she picks up more. She even stops to eye the big gobs of ugly dead jellyfish and a fish head with flies surrounding it.

Eventually, her bag tilts, threatening to spill its contents. She pays no mind. Nor does she care that she can carry no more. She is struggling to tote everything, and still, she continues to look, stoop and gather.
A second woman walks along the surf's edge with nothing in her hands. She pumps her arms in rhythm to her walk. She looks straight ahead, she looks side to side. She eyes the magic of the beach, the sparkling water; and stares upward to God's majestic clouds. She collects nothing which she passes, in spite of the beach being littered with a plethora of sea sponges, broken shells, overturned horseshoe crabs, and pieces of coral reef. This woman remained hands-free from holding and lugging home any beach treasures at all.

If we use these two scenarios as metaphors ... we are sometimes the first lady, who spends much time looking down. We walk along life's way and pick up every wet sandy piece of drama and bad withered emotions of jealousy, grudges and negativity that we can find. We stuff them away, although our hearts, soul and minds are already overflowing with other 'junk.' After awhile, it feels like SO much that we can't hold it all. It weighs us down, it makes us struggle. It is smelly and wet and unpleasing. And yet we trudge along and search for more ... instead of letting go.
 

We are sometimes the second lady who strolls through life, sees it, feels it, enjoys its blessings, and remains free of the crappy junk that weighs us down. We choose not to look down - and especially not back - and focus on straight ahead. We look up in thanks. We move along, make progress and leave behind the wet sandy pieces that we know will weigh us down, that we know will cause us to break. We would rather be free.