A basket full of stone..

During bad days I sometimes reflect on moments in my life, that was difficult, but I got thru them.

We were having some huge problems in the family several years ago.

One part would not accept the invitation for my son's baptize, if the other part came.
They forced me to chose.
Yeah right, that's really an annoying place to be in.

I talked with the priest and he told me this story...

"Imagine you go thru your whole life with a basket.
Each time something bad happens and you blame yourself for that, you pick up a rock and put the rock into your basket.
As you go thru life, the basket will contain more and more rocks, and you can't move at all. You can't go forward, you can't go back, you can't move.

Standing there in the middle of the road if your life, people sprinting passes you. And you notice, that they too carry a basket, it's just much more light than yours.
Could it be, that not all the rocks in your basket belongs to you(?) Everything is not supposed to sit on your shoulders."

Okay(?) Well, I have to start learning to throw away my rocks...
SO I called up the entire family and told them, that I would hope to see everybody, and if they chose not to take part of it, that their choice, not mine.
AND for the future it would be exactly the same.  It is our party, and we decide who to invite, nobody else."

Some chose to be offended, that I didn't chose side, but that's really not my style to bring wood to such a fire.
I told myself that their internal problems did not belong to me, I had done nothing wrong. I threw away the stone and started walking.