Helping With Heavy Burdens

I have climbed over 17,000 ft passes, I have carried a 50 lb backpack for many weeks through the mountains, I have run half marathons, and I used to consider myself fairly strong...until today. I saw a young girl filling her two water jugs here at the center, and thought I would be nice and offer to help her carry them back to her homestead. I have done this before, but not a container this big. I helped her lift the first container to her head, wishing I had a different way to carry the container I would carry. From my estimation, I would guess there were at least 8 gallons of water in each container (and if I remember right, water weighs 7-8 lbs per gallon), meaning that we were carrying at least 56 lbs of water each. Which may not seem like much except for that the handle of the container was about a quarter of an inch wide, digging into my hand even as I picked up the container for the first time.
So we started the walk to her homestead, about a quarter of a mile away. Within the first 20 yards, my hand was screaming because the pull on my fingers was too much for that small strip of plastic called a handle. She was carrying on a conversation, while balancing the container on her head, while I struggled with each step with my water. When we were about a third of the way there, I realized that it was going to take a lot more than I thought to get the water to her house. My only method of continuing on to her house was to walk about 30 steps with the container in one hand, stop, set it down, switch hands and walk another 30 steps. Throughout the walk I apologized to her for being so slow & having such a hard time. She responded with, “it’s ok. You’re helping me.” Those few words spoke so deep in my heart.
As we continued walking to her homestead, I realized that her words were more than a response to my carrying water, but they were a word from God. There have been many burdens I have seen in the last several weeks, that are too overwhelming to begin to think about carrying, and I can’t comprehend how people do it on a day to day basis. I have struggled with having too high of expectations of myself in entering another culture to serve alongside of what God is doing. Many times I have tried to take on burdens that are much more than I’m meant to carry & I’ve tried to be the savior that no mere human is meant to be. But in these few words from this young girl, it was a reminder that God didn’t call me to carry these burdens, but to introduce people to the One who wants to carry their burdens. He hasn’t called me to be any kind of savior, but rather to point people to the true Savior. And He reminded me that it’s ok that I am slow & make mistakes because this is His thing that He’s doing (and has been doing for thousands of years)...and He’s been generous enough to let me walk with Him in this and somehow help Him in this place for this season.