| I am in a season where I feel frozen over sometimes. I have an M.O. for resorting to dealing with things “later”. That makes me pretty good at dealing with crisis’ and difficult things in the moment. The truth underneath that statement is that “later” never really comes. Difficult things pile up on the inside of my bones and start to become solidified. They stick to my rib cage. They turn my blood to led. They begin to form around my heart and hang on it. They freeze over my heart, blocking it into an icy terrain that knows neither pain nor joy. It doesn’t react or feel, it just is. The ice compounds on itself. When there is no light for days or weeks, it only grows and accumulates layers. It thickens. Debris and remnants of each storm freeze into the layers of what was once the ground, now a white and desolate block of ice. With each storm, the surface of my soul becomes a little less like itself, and a little more like the enemy would love it to become. It’s sleek and shiny now, it glistens with opportunity for falling. The sacred ground of my heart that I once knew to be sturdy like a rock is now slippery. The air around it that was crisp and clear, it’s now a winter storm and foggy beyond sight. The less I talk to God, the farther from Him I feel. What a concept. It has to be the most obvious conclusion, no? It’s more than that though. The less I talk to God, the less I feel like myself. And the less I feel like who He made me to be. It makes sense then, that I feel farther from Him and farther from myself at the same time. He did make me, after all. And if I am made in His image, then being far from Him is also being far from myself and who God made me to be. When I’m going through something, when I’m feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders, when I’m beaten tired and I have to convince my lungs to keep breathing, sometimes I feel short on breath for God. The King of the Universe was not short on breath for me. I am formed of the clay of the ground and breathed life into by God Himself in the beginning. Yet, when I am feeling tired, burdened and in pain, I can’t spare God a moment of my time to share with Him how I’m feeling. Sometimes, I just don’t feel like talking to God. Why? I’m not always sure. Maybe it’s that I don’t want to pray and hope for something that may not come to fruition – and be disappointed. Or, maybe, it’s that I don’t have anything good to say – all I have to bring is doubt and worry, sadness and anger. Focusing on those things doesn’t feel great in theory, so I don’t want to think about them or pray about them more than I have to. Maybe it’s because at that moment, in my mind, it feels easier to just ignore it. Because that is my M.O., and that’s what I’m good at. Allowing the freeze to take over. Besides, it makes me resilient. This ice, you couldn’t shatter it with a baseball bat or nuclear missile. It’s war proof. I’m good under pressure. Robust under hardship. Levelheaded in the midst of chaos. But deep, deep, under the accumulation of all the pain, sorrow and exhaustion that has frozen these sacred grounds – there is a silent heartbeat. It beats quietly and does just enough to make it through, but has no output left for more than that. It dares not to open itself up to the raw emotion and feeling that lurks within all the layers of ice and frozen sheets. Something happens though, as I make my best effort to completely cover and preserve myself in these rugged blocks of ice. God begins to speak to me. Whether it is through music, or through a long-needed conversation with a good friend that can be trusted. That’s because He loves me. And He is desperate to be with me. Even when I am not pursuing Him. God is pursuing my heart. And as I begin to hear Him and talk with Him, everything starts to change. I feel physically different. It’s as though the chunks of ice in and around my rib cage start to rattle and shake, pieces fall off left and right, even if they are small ones. And when I hear Him and listen to His voice, when I engage with the beautiful and clear voice that is the Holy Spirit, it is everything but frozen. I feel alive. The more I encounter and chose to engage with God where I’m at in this season, I feel more and I learn more. To be honest, a lot of times that has meant feeling a lot more pain. But I know that feeling that pain now and processing through that with Him is how it’s meant to be. We are doing it together. He has so many things to teach me. And He’s there when I just want to yell or scream at Him. Or just weep and mourn. He’s there for that too. God isn’t afraid of my questions or doubts. He welcomes them. And as He welcomes me, the season inside starts to feel different. I feel like myself when I talk to God. And I feel more like myself tonight than I have in a while. Snow hit almost every corner of the country this past week. We all know what happens when we stay out in the cold for a prolonged period of time. We have all felt what happens to our hands and feet as we stay later and later in the cold. At first, we’re freezing. Then, we’re comfortable. Sort of. We lose feeling. Our hands and feet go numb, circulation cuts off and things sort of feel – just OK. The pain of being cold is gone but our bodies are telling us that not all is well. It isn’t how we are meant to be, and we can sense that in every fiber of our being until we get our feeling back. And so only then it is that the thaw begins. Imagine your fingers frozen to the bone and discolored as blood slowly comes back. The pain of the thaw is unbearable at first. It is a good thing to get your circulation back, and it’s the temperature your body is meant to be at. It’s the getting there that is a painful but necessary process. So, it will be the same when we have pain in our hearts we have been prolonging dealing with. Because before then, we couldn’t feel anything. And feeling again for the first time, it hurts, sometimes miserably. Jesus is with us in every moment of pain. And He is the sun that thaws out our barren and estranged hearts. We must refuse to make silent agreements within ourselves to keep quiet and keep going. We must detest selling the most valuable real estate that is inherently ours to the enemy – our hearts. We must be willing to move – and continue to move through the hard things and do it with God, not without Him. For when we move, the ice begins to shatter and fall off. The soul begins to feel alive. The heart begins to beat. The lungs begin to breathe. The mind begins to fill with ease and wonder once more. The feet begin to feel familiar and light again. And the spirit begins to know itself as though it has lost no time at all, and it was there all along. You begin to feel known. Known and loved by the Great I Am. I feel like I am always beginning. Beginning to know God. Beginning to know how to deal with hard things. Beginning to know the meaning of trust. Beginning to mourn. Beginning to feel hope. Beginning to know joy. Beginning to become who He made me to be. Beginning to embrace the thaw. |