How to Hold Your Heart Open When It Seems You Can't....

Last Wednesday I posted about tragedy, about crisis, about things that are so large, that they are hard to process/comprehend/hold-in-our-hearts-to-pray-about...

I talked about my emotional numbness, about the psychological disconnect that occurred during 9/11 and the recent Japanese tragedy...

We were never meant to face such challenges...we were made completely in God's image, and placed in a perfect world...we were not designed to be able to handle tragedy...

If we weren't designed to handle crisis, then how is it that our minds can become numb, that our minds can "dis-connect" or "dissociate" as a temporary survival technique?

If we weren't designed to withstand such blows...then how is it that we can function at all in the face of the multitudes of painful experiences that happens in this fallen world?   It is a miracle...

We ARE made in God's image...intellectually, emotionally, volitionally, having a spirit that seeks to re-connect with its Source...God doesn't need to "numb out", "disconnect", or "dissociate" when it comes to the things that affect our lives (and since His Presence is always with us; He is affected, too), but instead He provides what we need the most - a path back to unhindered fellowship with Him...

I talked about the nebulous "it" that is the source of my distress, more clearly defining the overwhelm, and in the naming, breaking the tragedy into - perhaps? - more manageable pieces...

I was processing, holding the people in my heart and as I did the time turned into a sort of intercessory prayer as I touched and held and came close to the burden that I now know the Lord had placed in my heart...wait a minute, when I numb out, disconnect, and dissociate from tragedy, is it true that I am also doing the same thing to the burden the Lord wants to share with me, and that I am even  dis-connecting from Him?! 

And at that time of coming closer I didn't remember that one of the names of the Lord is Jehovah-Jireh - the Lord our Providor...(and why would I?  But this is the key to holding my heart open)...

The Lord our Providor - this is how I have learned to interpret the Hebrew for years...but I have been reading "Trail to the Tree" from A Holy Experience, too, and in Day 2 we are reading the account of Abraham offering Isaac to the Lord, and in The Message Bible,  the verse reads "Abraham said, "Son, God will see to it that there is a sheep for the burnt offering.  And they kept walking together"...and verse 14 reads "Abraham named that place God-Yireh (God sees to it).  That's where we get the saying "On the mountain of God, He sees to it"..."

And her quick prayer is written "Father, You see to it, whatever "it" is."

And I am struck still...all the "it's" of my processing last week - He sees to them...He sees "it"...He sees each of pieces I need to process...and He has what I need to manage the tragedy...

I need to take off my fig leaves of numbness, diconnectedness, and dissociation; I need to not even try to sew a few of them together...but call out to Him, in my nakedness of questions and confusion and overwhelm; fear and distress...and cling to Him, His Presence...

Tragedy is an invitation to draw closer to Him and to keep my heart open to the fullness of His provision and to declare that "God will see to it"...and keep walking together...with Him.


Linking up with Emily and other imperfects at Imperfect Prose

A link for your consideration:

A book that looks at the increasing "natural" disasters in the world and places them in the context of what the Bible says... God is still in control!
Description: 92 pages - available here
Find out how God speaks through natural catastrophes.

A book that so poetically illustrates the emotion of God, and our part in joining Him in intercessory prayer...

Re-printed under the title:  Hearts Attuned to God
Available here:  canaaninthedesert.com