Come Unto Me

The Shelter

Jesus addresses this invitation to those who labour and are heavy laden, language that fits grief as precisely as it fits any other kind of burden. Heavy laden describes carrying a weight too large to set down easily, and rest is offered not as an escape from the burden itself but as something available to those still actively carrying it.

Notice what this invitation does not require first. It does not ask you to set the burden down before coming, to first resolve your grief into something more manageable, to arrive composed and lightened. It simply says come, exactly as you are, exactly as heavy laden as you currently are, and receive rest in the coming, not as a reward for prior effort.

This is rest offered in the middle of carrying, not only after the carrying ends. Grief, unlike some burdens, does not always have a clear date when it will be set down entirely. Jesus is not offering rest contingent on that date arriving. He is offering it now, in the actual middle of the heaviness, to the one still actively laden.

Come to him today, specifically, with whatever is heavy. Not once the grief lightens on its own, not after enough time has passed to make you presentable. Now, exactly as heavy laden as you currently are, exactly as this invitation was written to receive you.