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Jan 25, 2025 06:00am

The Gift of a Featherlight Heart

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I was 9 years old, and I very much hated disappointing my parents. Every Friday, my teacher would send home the work we did all week stapled together to be signed by our parents. I was a born over achiever, and taking home a stack of papers to show my parents was usually a great way to start off my weekend.

One day at school….without any explanation as to what was going on in my mind… I completely spaced out and did not complete even one problem on a math test. I turned it in completely blank. Not. One. Answer. I don’t think I even realized what happened until I got my Friday stack to take home.

I can still feel the shock I felt that day as I flipped through my work. When I flipped to the page with a big fat zero, my stomach fell.

Imagining my parents flipping through those pages and seeing that grade was just not computing. As quickly as the thought raced through my mind, I held onto the stapled side of the stack with one hand and snagged that red marked paper right out with the other. More quickly than I could utter the words, “Criminal!” that test was balled up and tossed into the garbage can.

I thought it was going to be smooth sailing from there, but boy was I wrong. Every night, I would lie in bed, trying to go to sleep, and this heaviness of guilt would just weigh me down like a brick on my chest. I would find myself trying to imagine telling my parents the truth, but it had all spiraled so out of control that I couldn’t work up the nerve to follow through.

My heart was so heavy. It was not an enjoyable experience. It ate me up so much that I was not sleeping well, my stomach hurt constantly, and it consumed my thoughts. So, one night, when I just didn’t think it possible to carry that weight anymore, I ran to my parents’ room, woke them up (It was probably midnight.), and the words came rushing out faster than their ears could take them in.

Once I slowed down enough to confess my deceitful deed, I breathed a full breath for the first time in weeks! My parents forgave me, probably gave me some type of discipline-although the release of that guilt was enough I don’t even remember what my consequence was, and I slept like a baby for the first time since the moment I saw that dreaded zero!

As I worked through my small group study this week, I read about how God hardened Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus. The study guide said that the Egyptian people believed that it was Pharaoh’s responsibility to maintain order and security in the country. When God sent the plagues upon the Egyptians, the people saw the disorder as an indication that Pharaoh was not the strongest in the land.

It turns out that the people of Egypt also believed that a person‘s heart would be measured on a scale in comparison to a feather, after they died. If someone lived a life of righteousness, his or her heart would be equal in weight to the feather. If a person was guilty, his or her heart would be hardened and heavy, meaning it would outweigh the feather on the scales greatly.

As I read this, my 9 year old heavy heart came to mind. My hard heart felt like a ton of bricks in my chest that would have sent that proverbial feather flying when it plopped down on the scale! It did not lead an entire nation to see God‘s power, but the Holy Spirit did impact me in such a way that I understood the severity of being honest and truthful and recognize that He was and is the most powerful in my life.

Proverbs 12:25 (“Anxiety in a man’s heart, weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.”) had never felt so personal to me before then. Sadly, I have experienced that heaviness multiple times since that day, but knowing that Jesus came to this earth to be my righteousness, so that I can be forgiven, allows my heart to get that featherweight back again.

Romans 7:18 tells us, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but HOW to perform what is good I do not find.” There is no good in me, except that which was given to me through Jesus. Because He is my Savior, He redeems every pound of sin that weighs my heart down! Every single brick. What a true gift My Redeemer is!