There are many things in life that are supposed to bring happiness but actually become burdensome: like the proverbial mother of the bride, who takes what was supposed to be the most wonderful day of her daughter’s life and turns it into a tension-filled ordeal; or the initiation ceremonies which were supposed to give newcomers a sense of being received into an exclusive band of brothers, but which, with the passage of time, have become ordeals that humiliate the victims and brutalize the perpetrators.
In all the important milestones of life we need to ask ourselves whether what we are doing is going to be a blessing or a burden, and to remember those wise words from the Bible that tell us ‘not to conform to the pattern of this world, but to let God change the way we think.’