SIL - May / June 2020

Everyday Adventures
Brick by Brick
Last summer Lowes put their
bricks on sale, and it almost killed
me. We had a cracked concrete
patio that didn’t look so hot, but
my wife had found a DIY site that showed
how you could brick over it and transform
it into a backyard paradise. It was just laying
bricks on sand. How hard could it be?
I did the math and according to my
calculations I needed 1,000 bricks. I have
an English degree so I knew that number
was shaky at best, but I figured I’d start
there and see what happened.
When it came time to pick up the
bricks, however, I wasn’t exactly sure how
I was going to get them home. I had a
2006 Honda Odyssey. How many bricks
could I fit in the back, and how much
weight could I even haul?
I didn’t really think about this until
I was sitting in the Lowe’s pick up area
waiting for them to bring out my order. I
did a quick search of their website to see
how much a brick weighs. Turns out it’s
four pounds, and I was getting 1,000. A
quick calculation told this English major
that’s 4,000 lbs or an even two tons.
Hmm, that sounded kind of heavy.
I checked my owner’s manual, and according
to the folks at Honda I could
haul about 1,300 pounds in the Odyssey.
Seemed like my bricks might put me a bit
over the limit.
Could I push it and go for half?
That was only 2,000 pounds, which didn’t
sound like a whole lot more than 1,300. It
wasn’t even double. But what would happen
if I loaded the minivan with too much
weight? Would I blow a tire? Snap the
axle? I had no idea.
Just as I was trying to Google it, a
forklift came around the corner carrying
my tower of bricks. Even if they were
light as a feather, there was no way I was
getting all those in my van. At that moment
I knew I was way out of my league.
I asked the guy to give me half, and
we spent the next 45 minutes loading them
in the back one brick at a time. With each
brick we added, the Honda sank closer to
the ground as my heart sank along with
it. I had to get these things home, but this
seemed like a bad idea.
The second I pulled out of the parking
lot, I could tell I was in trouble. With
a ton of bricks in the back, the van handled
like a totally different car, the weight
pushing against me every time I hit the
brakes or changed lanes. I took it slow
30 • May/June 2020 • Southern Indiana Living
and easy praying every mile of the way.
Somehow, though, by the grace of
God, I made it to my driveway, but as
soon as I tried to pull in, I bottomed out.
Our van had a trailer hitch for hauling a
bike rack, and I could hear it screeching
as it dug into concrete. I wasn’t going any
farther.
The second I pulled
out of the parking lot,
I could tell I was in
trouble. With a ton
of bricks in the back,
the van handled like a
totally different car.
After unloading 500 bricks with a
wheelbarrow, I was beat. I didn’t go back
for the rest until the next day. This time
I’d learned my lesson. I only got 250, took
those home, dumped them and went back
for the final load.
That was about the time it occurred
to me that Lowe’s delivers things like this,
and for sixty bucks, I could have saved
myself a whole lot of trouble.
But that’s how it goes sometimes
in life. We all carry burdens that are too
heavy to handle on our own. Sometimes,
it’s like my home improvement fiasco,
when we get ourselves into trouble because
we didn’t think something through
on the front end. Other times, however,
someone else is driving the forklift, and
they dump a burden on us that hits us like
a ton of bricks.
Maybe your burden is a money
thing. You’ve lost your job or you’re just
struggling to pay your bills. You have no
idea how you’re going to make it work,
and the weight of the stress is crushing
you.
For you it could be a health burden.
The cancer has come back or you’re waiting
for test results or you just don’t feel
good and you’re worried about what it
could be.
You may be dealing with a broken
relationship, grieving the loss of a loved
one or wrestling with guilt over all the
ways you’ve blown it in life. Your burden
could be anxiety or depression or a million
different things.
I don’t have easy answers for any of
those situations, but I do know this. We
were never meant to carry these burdens
alone.
Psalm 55:22 invites us to, “Give your
burdens to the Lord, and he will take care
of you” (NLT). Psalm 68:19 says, “Praise
be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who
daily bears our burdens” (NIV). And in
Matthew 11:28 Jesus said, “Come to me,
all of you who are weary and carry heavy
burdens, and I will give you rest.”
I don’t know about you, but that
sounds like a good deal to me. I would
have had to pay Lowe’s to deliver those
bricks to my house, but God? He carries
my burdens for free. He is big enough
and strong enough to bear the weight of
anything that encumbers us today. So
whatever you’re straining under, lay it
down and invite the God who loves you
to do the heavy lifting you were never
never meant to do on your own. •
Jason Byerly is a writer, pastor, husband and
dad who loves the quirky surprises God sends
his way every day. You can read more from
Jason in his books Tales from the Leaf Pile and
Holiday Road. You can catch up with Jason on
his blog at www.jasonbyerly.com.