Sinking

As I sit down to try to put some of my thoughts and emotions into words so they don’t continue to suffocate me, my son is playing and singing.

“Oh how He loves us, oh how He loves us, how He loves us so…”

I stopped to close my eyes and beg God to sink that Truth down in my soul once more. Deeper. For it to be more overwhelming than what I’m feeling right now.

I’ve been sensing lately that I am again doing what I tend to do at times: sinking. I hate this pattern in my life. I don’t want to be this way. But I recognize that it happens more than it should. It doesn’t happen in crisis: that tends to send me desperately running to my Father for comfort and fortress. It happens in the day-to-day, mundane, unchanging times. Not in the middle of the raging storm, but in the lingering rain that seems never-ending. When sunlight seems a distant memory.

This year has stunk so far. I’ll just be honest. It has been the greatest reminder of just how sin-infused and unfair this life is. Are we promised fair or easy? No, the opposite. But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt or we don’t grow weary in the middle of it. And it doesn’t mean I don’t get frustrated with how I’m currently dealing with it. Rather than staying desperate and on my face and begging God to hold me up and give me His strength, I’ve grown numb. I have let my exhaustion turn me into a spiritual vegetable. I am seemingly unable to express much. But I can only do this for so long. Because my sweet, merciful Savior pulls me out of my funk and shows me what a daze I’ve been in. This time it hit me out of nowhere while I was pulling weeds in the flowerbeds.

I should have seen it coming: I’ve been far too passionate about landscaping lately. I’ve reassessed everything I’ve planted over the last two years, decided most of it looked stupid, and dug up and re-planted most of it. I’ve literally put blood, sweat, and tears (and money) into the dirt around our house. I am generally pleased with the results and I have the sunburn and aching muscles to show how much time I put into it! My babies enjoyed helping me and it was good for all of us to work and soak in the awakening of the earth that is spring. But the best thing to come from my week of acting like a crazy person is the way God whispered to me when I was working alone.

It started when I was planting something new and hoping it would do well in that location. And wishing I could send John a text to ask his advice, like I have done multiple times a year – especially in the spring – over the past eleven years. That’s when the tears began to fall. That’s when I began to pull up a whole bunch of weeds with a vengeance. Flashbacks to different moments over the past 2 ½ months started to play like a video in my head that I couldn’t stop. Each weed I jerked out of the ground was like a particular memory that I wanted to remove from my head – and from being real! – and toss into the trash pile. Death is such a thief. And the most vivid reminder of the result of sin in this world. The epitome of pain and unfairness and helplessness.

“And God, it doesn’t stop there…” as I continued watering the dirt with my sudden tears. “There’s this other relationship I have to grieve now… and these people who need you and won’t accept your love…and this longing for something good that isn’t being fulfilled…and worry about this person’s health…and the kitten we rescued died…and…and…”

I continued to basically complain to God about all the things that have happened in the last three months. What I realized is that though it was a range of things, they all had something in common: pain. From horrible and life-altering loss, all the way down to minor worries. It hurts and I don’t like it.

The only thing we can control – often the only choice we have in the midst of pain – is how we respond.  I have been letting the pain from multiple directions send me into a “going through the motions” way of dealing with life; and it caught up with me. Rather than continuing to stay desperate for God, I have let the circumstances around me be like quicksand, causing me to gradually sink down further and further. Before I knew it, I had sunk down into a blurry existence. Hardly what I am called to. Hardly what glorifies God. Hardly the example I am supposed to be. Hardly what will allow me to be any kind of help to anyone around me – the very people that it hurts so badly to watch be in such pain!

So what is the answer? I can’t change the circumstances and I can’t even change my response on my own. Even if I wanted to “pull myself up by my bootstraps,” which isn’t exactly the right response either, I’m past that point. My heart is weary to the point that my body is reflecting it. And as I was processing all of this, God whispered the answer to me by reminding me of this verse:

“From the end of the earth I call to You, when my heart is overwhelmed and weak;         

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I [a rock that is too high to reach without Your help].” (Psalm 61:2AMP)

Once again, the words of David are the cry of my own heart. I am overwhelmed and weak – and feel guilty for feeling overwhelmed and weak! The result of me not staying desperate and dependent on God for my very breath has brought me to this point of feeling desperate. Just in a much more complicated and pain-full manner. It’s all so ironic. Yet in the midst of it, I see the mercy of God to show me my heart and my need for Him in a fresh way.

I don’t want to sink. I want to constantly cling to Him. But I’m SO VERY THANKFUL that when I am weak – even when it’s a result of my own sin! – He is strong and doesn’t stop holding me. And will lead me to a place I can’t climb to on my own. I can only sink like a rock on my own. But He leads me to The Rock: Himself.

Oh how He Loves me, indeed.