My Bucket

"Why do I have to deal with my stuff? Why can't I just toss it aside, so I can help others?"

That's a question that I have heard more than once, so the metaphor I often give is the bucket.

Imagine yourself on a boat, carrying a full bucket of water. Your job is to empty that bucket of water because that water is unresolved trauma. The problem is that the bucket always refills. But you want to help others. You can see on the horizon someone is in their boat and clearly in distress, being tossed around. So, in your haste to help others, you throw your bucket overboard and make your way to that boat. The problem is that bucket that's overboard: it is now a sea anchor, and that anchor is pulling you this way and that, not allowing you to travel straight, slowing you down, hampering you.

Now realizing that the bucket is still attached to the boat and that throwing it overboard was not helpful, you pull the bucket back into the boat. It is filled with water. So, you do the work, and slowly, slowly, can pour the water out of the bucket. You are able, in short, to let go of all that trauma.

But you still have that bucket.

You make your way to that boat you saw in distress, without any sea anchor holding you back. With the aid of your bucket, you can help the other boating by bailing out their boat which threatened to sink them.

The bucket, this symbol of hurt and pain and trauma, is no longer something to be frustrated by, embarrassed by, or hindered by. Rather, it is a tool you can now use to help others. That is the hope offered to those that patiently do the work. Dr. Ted once told me that God does not waste our pain, rather, He uses our experiences to equip us to help others who are experiencing a very similar pain to ours.

I would like to suggest that God wants you to use your bucket to help others, but before you can do that, you need to do some work yourself. So please, reach out and start doing some work, so you too can use your bucket to help others who are sinking in the sin and shame that you were once adrift in too.

Go and empty your bucket.