You can’t put something down without feeling lighter.
There’s something about that moment you commit to it, and with release comes real ease (you can thank spell check from that one :p). You can’t help but exhale and relax with the sudden lack of weight on your shoulders, of tension in your neck.
Anyone who’s carried a backpack can understand this metaphor, especially those of you who’s backpack carries the entire contents of your life for a period of time. It doesn’t take long for that thing to get HEAVY. There are points where you learn to live with it, other points where you get fed up and lighten the load (ditching things that have never proved useful but you secretly hope you don’t end up needing later). But nothing beats that moment you unbuckle the waist strap and slide that monster off. It makes the most satisfying thud I think I’ve ever heard. It makes me want to run in freedom or if I’m especially tired, splay out on the floor like a starfish.
So when I wrote my last post I was still a little confused over one particular: if I was really laying it all down why didn’t I feel lighter? Truth is I did, just not in the way I was used to.
The moment I finished typing and saved the draft, something about telling other people made my decision concrete- it became something I knew I couldn’t turn back from. Ya’ll were my witnesses as I solemnly swore to keep going forward no matter how much easier it still feels to look back. And God honored my decision the moment I decided to believe I could do it- I could start over and relearn everything I still feel like I already know. (Pride, you gotta go. This is way too messy for you to have a foothold.)
First it started with realizing how numb my chest felt. I wouldn’t have noticed if it wasn’t for the tingling sensation. The best way I can explain it is that it’s like the process of my arm healing. When the stitches were out and the sling was off I thought all that remained was for me to get the strength back in my arm. To the contrary I quickly discovered that there was still a mass of tissue near my now scar that hurt like the dickens when I carried things I shouldn’t. After a couple of weeks my strength came back but I randomly would experience something like a burr being shoved under my skin. My arm and fingers would tingle and sting for minutes at a time. This continued all the way through China and has only just become something I’d refer to as infrequent.
Even after the tissues had healed, the nerves of the wound had to slowly attach and reconfigure where to go.
I had been blessed in that I never lost my feeling or ability in my arm but still there were nerves that had been killed or cut off and new ones needed to connect in their place.
In the same way, I now must recommit to seeking my Father; to being of one heart and mind with my Papa. I know “methods” but am at a loss as for how to reconnect to the nerves of His heart.
I’m encouraged by Romans 8:24-27 “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”
I don’t yet know how to articulate how perfectly this fits my situation. It’s like He knows me or something. 🙂
But the beauty I’m beginning to see is that I don’t have to struggle through the motions of what I’ve always done to connect with God. Neither will I sit back in the name of not forcing anything. Instead I’m listening, testing what I hear and seeing where it takes me. I can’t see the path set before me but I know I can trust in the hope that it leads to the heart of He who loves me tremendously.
