What’s In Your Baggage?

What’s in Your Baggage?

You desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there.

Psalm 51:6

We’ve got a peculiar question for you today, but there’s a reason for it, so go with us.

Have you ever thought about what’s in the luggage that makes the rounds at the baggage claim area in the airport? As you are waiting for your own bags to arrive, you think to yourself or say to each other, “That monogrammed Louis Vuitton piece must surely contain valuables. . . . That hot pink Samsonite number with the stickers on it looks intriguing. . . . Wonder who has that cardboard box held together with duct tape and string. . . . How about that sleek silver case with the sturdy lock?”

Allow us to further ask what may seem even a bit more peculiar to you: If your psychological baggage were traveling on that same conveyor belt at the airport, what kind of shape would it be in? How would it look? Scuffed up? Tightly locked? Nondescript? We ask such a question because your answer would reveal a bit about how you consider your past. It provides a quick glimpse into your feelings about your personal history. It is those feelings that we psychologists are getting at when we talk about your proverbial “baggage.”

History is what has happened in our lives; baggage is how we feel about it. Your psychological perspective on your past determines, to a great extent, your personal health and vitality—not to mention how you and your spouse interact with each other. By the way, you need not suffer a traumatic accident or something dreadful to have “baggage”; we all have it. Even the most adjusted and healthy people have baggage. No one is exempt. You may have childhood angst over parental divorce, conflicts with friends and family, or remorse over missteps and lost opportunities. Everyone has a history and an emotional response to it.

When it comes to being a healthy, thriving human being in a loving relationship, what matters is not whether you have baggage at all but whether you have explored or even unpacked your baggage together. Have you ever taken the time to do that? Or have you let your spouse think your baggage is a bit nicer than it really is? God desires honesty from the very beginning of our lives to the end, and we are wise when we practice it with our spouses. Think about what baggage you might unpack together today.

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.

—Charles Dudley Warner