When I worked as a journalist and would talk of finding a way out of the business, I’d say that I wanted to be allowed to feel, to speak my mind. One of the main things I’d talk about were my feelings on politics, but in all honesty I wanted to be allowed to feel for people and act on it.
A few weeks after I started at my first newspaper position, Hurricane Katrina hit. I didn’t work anywhere near New Orleans, but like in most other cities I had the opportunity to talk to and write about many of the evacuees. I learned early on that in this business you get the story and move on. As embarrassing as it is for me to admit, during many of my interviews (not just Katrina, but throughout my three years as a reporter) I listened with a HUGE lump in my throat, but was unable to cry. Only once did I shed tears after an interview at a shelter for children who’d been sexually abused.
During one of the most intense nights at camp, when others showed their emotion freely, that familiar lump made its appearance again. I spoke to one of my squadmates that night about the feeling and how during my time as a reporter I wouldn’t cry for major things, but would break down at an Applebees commercial. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to process things well during the race and would shut down emotionally. I didn’t want this to happen.
But God has a way of working through these things even when you don’t necessarly realize beforehand that you need to work on them.
During another spiritually intense (Oh, who am I kidding? They were all intense!) night at camp, our speaker asked that those of us who wanted to be filled with the Holy Spirit stand. I think it’s safe to say that pretty much all of us wanted that. I mean, why wouldn’t we, right?
So as I was standing there, I felt someone come up behind me, place her hand on my back and begin praying for me.
Now, I am new to this hardcore praying for, worship, Holy Spirit thing, but when she was praying for me I felt a HUGE wave of emotion come over me. And I started crying. Like a baby.
I didn’t understand what was happening to me and when she asked me why I was crying I only knew to say, “I have no idea! I don’t know why I’m crying!” In the moments that followed I tried to explain it away with my being tired, or something…anything else!
It wasn’t until later that I realized God had given me just what I needed that night. Because my holding in my emotion goes a lot further than breaking down at Applebees commercials and not crying for people I don’t really know. I have held back A LOT personally, especially because others see me laughing a lot, and not surprisingly, this has led to destruction, but we’ll touch on that in my next blog.
What this meant for the new me came full circle on our ministry night in Atlanta. While my teammate, Geoff ,looked intently into a homeless man’s eyes, with an incredible amount of patience as he tried to understand this man’s past, my eyes filled with tears. And slowly they began to fall.
My team leader Melanie kept looking my way and asked me several times if I was OK. I would just nod to her and say I was fine, but what nobody but God and me knew at that moment, was that those tears were His gift to me.
He had given me the gift of compassion I had longed to have.
