It was an ordinary photo. Taken quickly at the summit, just to keep a memory. The cross, the sky, the evening light.
And then, looking more carefully, a silhouette at the foot of the cross — bent, as if crushed under an invisible weight. It took me a moment to recognise it. It was my shadow.
There are truths we only see from a distance, or by chance, or when someone — or something — holds up an unexpected mirror. That day, it was a photo that played that role. It told me what I did not want to see: that the fatigue of the climb was not only in my legs. It was deeper. A weight I had been carrying for a long time, so familiar I had stopped noticing.
We often do this. We learn to carry. We grow used to it. And we end up believing it is normal to walk bent over.
But the cross is there, at the summit. It is not there to decorate the landscape. It is there to receive what we can no longer carry alone.
“Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Matthew 11:28 (ESV)
Jesus does not say: ‘Acknowledge your burdens.’ He says: ‘Come to me.’ It is not enough to name the weight — you have to lay it down. That gesture, simple and difficult at once, is at the heart of faith.