Lord, I Don't Have the Words

Can You Please Just Listen to My Heart?

How many of us have ever felt that way? I have. Sometimes the burdens are too heavy or the pain too intense to know how to express it in words.

For the past couple years, I have felt just that way. It actually began about 10 years ago when my baby died. There were days I didn't know if I would be able to get out of bed that day. There were days I didn't get out of bed—the pain was just too much. During this period I made a huge mistake. I began to allow anger and bitterness to take over my heart. The biggest problem with bitterness is that it takes a hold, and it grows. It may not grow quickly, or it may not even get bigger overnight, but it does continue to grow. After two years, it had a FIRM hold.

In the last two years, locked in a house (not my house), unable to take part in life, unable to do things I enjoyed, stuck in a chair or in bed, those feelings had grown almost exponentially. I knew it was happening but really didn't know how to stop it, or by this time I didn't know if I even wanted to stop it. Did I care? Did it really matter to anyone? Ten years of bitterness over my baby, two years of chronic illness, isolation, loneliness and no hope in ever getting better, and no place to call home had allowed anger and bitterness to completely take over. I hated life. I hated being alive. I think I even began to hate God. I didn't like who I was. I hated who I had become. I realized that my life had become all about hate. The problem was, I knew it, and I didn't want this life, but by the time it got to this point I had no idea how to stop it.

The hatred, anger and bitterness spiraled out of control. Jim would tell me I was a negative angry person. I knew it, too, but I didn't know how to stop it. How do you stop being someone you hate when you are living daily in  the same circumstances that made you hate in the first place? My baby was gone and wasn't coming back. I was never able to get pregnant and carry to term again. I was chronically sick with a condition that has no cure as well as a heart condition brought on by doctors being irresponsible. We had to move out of our home to take care of Mom, yet my Mom made it very clear that this was her house and even though we took care of it, it was not our home. It seemed none of my friends cared because I sat alone day in and day out without a phone call or a visit. All the things that made me angry were still there.

I lived in my feelings—feelings of anger, loss, resentment, and frustration. My feelings said that God didn't care about me, so why should I care about Him? Why should I surrender my life to someone that would allow all of this bad stuff to happen? He couldn't have loved me—if He did, He would help me. I had prayed to Him. I had begged Him, but He wouldn't listen to me. I had cried to Him but I felt like my prayers fell on deaf ears.

Did they really fall on deaf ears? Did God really not care? Were all those things I grew up believing wrong? How did I figure out the answers? I couldn't go to church because of my immune system and no one even offered to come and pray with me. When I was able go to church, I went to my Pastor and told him how I was feeling. I told him that I was angry and that my anger was turning toward God. He told me there was nothing he could tell me. I was fine and I just needed to stop it. Stop what—grieving for my child, grieving for my health, grieving for hope? After that I felt like I had no one left to ask. I had to do it for myself.

I made a decision earlier this year. I had read somewhere (I don't remember exactly where) that when we act from our feelings, many times they lead us into trouble. Basically, our feelings were not something we can trust. I used to think I could. In fact, many times I made decisions based on feelings and it had seemed to work OK for me. Then I realized I was doing the same thing with God. I was feeling like He let me down. I was feeling like He didn't care. I was feeling like He wasn't listening. I knew in my head that He did, and I knew in my head that God was there for me and had been taking care of me, but it didn't "feel" like it. Maybe this was where I was getting it wrong.

I decided at the beginning of February that I was going to change how I was thinking. I couldn't change how I was feeling but I could change how I was thinking. I was going to work from what I KNOW, not what I FEEL. I started reading the Bible again. I decided to start from scratch and go back to basics. I found a "read-the-Bible-through-in-a-year" thing on the internet. I decided to read in chronological order this time. Who knew that Job chronologically falls in the middle of Genesis? It was a little different than I had done in the past, and I thought it might make it easier. 

I started reading. I begin each reading with the prayer, "God show me something. Help me see something that you want me to see. Help me to learn something that I need to learn." I pray everyday that He puts a desire for Him in my heart that is so strong I have no choice but to follow it. I have been reading until I find something that is new to me or something that I think God is showing me. Sometimes I have to read quite a while and have to stop myself because I have other things to do. Sometimes I stop myself because it is time to do Stephen's devotional with him. I asked God to put a desire for Him in my heart, and He did. Maybe He isn't deaf after all.

I think now that basing all of my decisions and beliefs on feelings took me on a path into the darkest place I have ever been in my life—a place that was lonely and left me feeling lost. I couldn't trust feelings. As I began to rely on what I KNOW, not what I FEEL, a peace started taking over. Things began to make sense to me and even the bad things began to have a purpose. I might not like them, in fact, there are some things that I detest and some things that make my heart break, but it is not the feelings that will get me into trouble. It is what I do with them. God understands that losing my son Cameron was heartbreaking. He cried with me and still cries with me when I need to. I have realized that like the words of the song *When I Cry, by Marshall Hall and Ben Gaither. When I cry, He cries. When I hurt, He hurts.  I know that as a Mom, when Stephen hurts, I hurt. When Stephen cries, I cry. If God is my Father, why wouldn't He hurt when I hurt? Somehow knowing that helps me get through the darkest times.

I can't say that my feelings have caught up with what I KNOW, but I am working on it. I KNOW I can count on two of my own character traits: stubbornness and determination. I KNOW that I am right saying that God loves me. I KNOW that God hears me when I pray. Psalm 34:17 says this: The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.

Lord, help me become righteous. 

* "When I Cry", (performed by Marshall Hall) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkLAwaw-4nY