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The Burden

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 11, 1915

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 92, No. 13.

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The Burden

By Zella Margaret Walters

“My child, there is a burden to be carried. Will you take it?” said the King to one of his children.
Because she loved the King she took it, but she went away with bitterness in her heart.
“Why was I given a burden?” she said. “I desired to serve the King. I would have gone on an embassy for him to a far country. I would have run to do his bidding here. But this heavy thing bows my back, and makes my footsteps lag. Why should any one bear a burden? Why does the King have such things in his land?”
And she went on her way slowly and unwillingly.
Then one day she passed a company of the King’s soldiers. Many of them were sick and fainting by the wayside. But when they saw her, they cried out in thankfulness. “Here comes one bearing the jar of healing on her shoulder!”
They came to her, and took a certain dry herb from the jar, and put it in water. Then when they had drunk, they were strong and well again, and able to go on the King’s business.
“Why,” said the woman, “if this burden will furnish cups of healing to others, I will bear it right gladly.”
So she hastened to go among the poor and sick, and offer them herbs from her jar. And always the herbs healed the sick body and soul. And it came to pass that the woman with the burden did more service for the King than many who walked quite free.
There came a day when the King summoned his servants to court.
“Is the burden too heavy for you?” he asked the woman.
“It grows lighter each day,” she said, “and were it much heavier I would not have it taken away. What has been a burden to me has been a cup of healing to many. And since my great desire was to serve, I am well content to serve in this way.”
“Child!” said the King, “whenever I lay a burden upon one’s shoulders it is not for sorrow and despair, but for help and healing to the one who carries it, and to all the world.”—Zella Margaret Walters, in The Mother’s Magazine.