Having traveled full-time for 14 years doing concerts, I should have packing down to an exact science. But it's simply not so. Our family of four always leaves home loaded with a humiliatingly inordinate amount of excess baggage.

It's possible to go through life with excess emotional baggage as well. Hurts and memories can make us unable to move toward emotional intimacy. It is vital to our spiritual and emotional growth that we identify these hurts, because Christ cannot heal suffering we insist isn't there. And without his healing, the weight of excess baggage will wreak havoc on our capacity to love and be loved.