How long will we carry our burdens?

Our hurt.

Guilt from the pain we've caused others.

Patterns of behavior deep and perverse.

Anger.

Resentment. Envy. deep and perverse. Anger, resentment, envy, heavier every day, obvious to those we love,

hunching our backs, exhausting our hands, and feebling our minds. If given the chance, would we put them down?

This is a story about the weight of the past in the present, about regret and shame and fear.

It's a story about the inevitability of such burdens and the sovereignty of a God

who longs for us to be free. I'm Justin Gerhardt. Welcome to Holy Ghost stories. The night hangs thick in Hebron.

Vipers stag, hunting quail and black caps in the darkness.

Barn owls screech, hyenas skulk and scavenge.

In his tent, Rubin, oldest of the sons of Jacob, tries to blink back unwelcome musings, old

feelings of guilt, the way he dishonored his father years ago by sleeping with Jacob's concubine

Bilha, mother of two of his own brothers, a breach of trust between father and son, still not

fully healed. This and other regrets, not least of which the most foundational of Ruben's

demons, Joseph's absence. Never has the lack of something weighed so much.

Rubin's heart simmers with anger toward his other brothers even after all these years.

Why were they so violent to Joseph?

Then more uncomfortable thoughts.

Why didn't I make them listen, assert myself more forcefully?

He deserved more.

...