Accepting Where You're At // Surrender The Journeyنموونە

Not Okay

You can yell at me if you want, shout loud your pain, let the tears rain down. Yes, I can take it. You can ball your fists, press your nails into your weary palms and pound them against my chest. You don’t have to try to pretend you are okay, with me. I know you feel like you’re not. I know you feel the opposite of okay.

It has been a long time, you think, of feeling like this life of yours is overwhelming. You are wondering how to get through this day, this hour, let alone tomorrow. You have no idea how to do it. You can hardly think. You are shutting down. You don’t want to feel. It all feels too much. But, listen . . . I have made you to feel. Feel anger at injustice. Feel sadness with disappointment. Feel energized by a challenge. Feel reticent when insecure. And this is okay. You, in the middle of all this, are okay.

Pay attention to what I am doing in your heart—with your emotions, your thoughts. Ask me to help you decipher them. Ask me to show you why you feel the way you feel. But these emotions? Feel them. And show them to me. The open-hearted surrender of your emotions to me will help you see me in the storm, in the madness you feel when emotion is all you know and nothing else makes any sense. 

Will you let me inside?

Son, daughter, raise your head. Look at my face. My eyes are on you. My arms are around you. With each tear you shed, I cry too. With each wave of anger, I hold you. You are not shattered into a million broken pieces that can never be fixed. You are not weak and powerless. You are not trapped. You are not a hopeless case with no way out. I am steadfast, and you are mine. I know your pain, and I help you endure it. I pour into you strength and faith and resilience to withstand storms, any storm. 

You don’t have to be okay. You don’t have to be strong. You don’t have to have the answers. You don’t have to have this all figured out, hold the key to the puzzle of your life. Peace comes with surrender and with faith, a knowing that you can rage and despair and struggle and question, and I will stand by you. And eventually, I will help you see your situation more clearly. But pretending you don’t need me is not what will bring you peace. 

Surrender. Let me in. Let’s make this okay.

Exercise:

When we are overwhelmed, stressed out, maxed out, distraught . . . When we’re brokenhearted, furious, depressed, or just done . . .  it’s hard to be okay with letting ourselves feel, feel all the emotions of the moment. We’d much rather they just stop. We’d rather shut them down, toughen up, fix ourselves, regain control. 

But God made us, He knows us . . . and He made those emotions too. He built us to feel them. He wired us so that we can feel them. So that they can work in us, work through us.

So, could it be that feeling them, and letting them work, is exactly what we need to do? Could it be that those emotions are good for us? Are healthy?

I get it, we want to fix what’s broken. We feel shame about what’s broken, and so we feel a responsibility to fix this stuff ourselves. But here’s the thing—we can’t mend what’s shattered, not by ourselves. We can’t repair our broken lives and broken relationships and broken hearts . . . on our own.

We need God.

And we need to let Him work the way He wants to work. In His way. With His timing.

Maybe that’s not what you want to hear right now. Maybe that seems weak or futile.

It’s not. It’s neither.

It’s actually how we tap into the most powerful force in the universe, and how we let that force work in our lives, work in our hearts, deal with our pain, our disappointment, our fears, how we let it deal with our circumstances.

Your Father knows your pain. He knows, and He is good. He runs to you in the middle of the storm and stands. He stands with you and does not stumble or struggle. He stands with you, and He will not leave.

Let’s let Him touch the tender places in your heart—the rage, the sadness; the frustration, the confusion. 

Let Him come to you, stand next to you, and put his arm on your shoulder. Let His strength become your strength. Lean in—a son or a daughter leaning into a strong, good, perfect Father. Notice how He takes the burden you’ve been carrying. Let Him take it.

And let the emotions come. Let them come to the surface. Don’t push them down or away.

Let go.

There’s nothing else to do.

Nowhere else to be.

You are loved.

You are His beloved son. You are His beloved daughter.

You are so okay.

Everything is okay.

Everything is going to be okay.

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