Numb.

If I had to describe what I have been feeling lately, it’s numb.

I didn’t want to be numb.  It’s just kind of what happened.

2020 has been a year of so many things.  Things that I didn’t think I would see in my lifetime: Prince Harry leaving the throne, murder hornets, Disney World being closed, Kanye West running for president, BLM protests, election violence, churches closing, so many people dying.  The list goes on and on.  There actually is a list on my phone, simply labeled 2020.  If I read the list out loud, it sounds ridiculous.  Yet, here we are.

I got to this place where it all just became too much.  Too much to explain to my kids, too much to process myself.  As much as I want to pray for everyone and everything, where do you start? 

A hard season does that to you.  A hard year does that to you.  But a pandemic?  On top of all the other things that have been going on this year?  I just got to this place that I don’t even have the words.  

All I have is emotions.  And what do you do with emotions when there is no way to resolve them?  It’s not like screaming or having a fit will suddenly make my husbands looming second lay off of the year hurt our finances less.  It’s not as if drowning my sorrows in a tub of ice cream will bring back so many people that died.  Nothing I can do will change things.

I think that’s why I am struggling right now.  I am a justice warrior.  My enneagram 8 temperament pushes me to be a world changer.  I don’t know what it means to be still.  I can’t.  I keep going no matter what, that’s my M.O.  

Except right now, my hands are tied.  I can’t be proactive in any way, other than stocking up on toilet paper, and now I am judged for even doing that.  

One of the things that I have been learning in this season is that it is ok to be not ok.  Let me say that again.

It is OK to not be OK.

So what do we do?  If you are anything like me, this is a hard spot to be in.  I want to DO something.  And because I can’t DO anything, even resolve my own feelings, I settle into a place of being numb.  And I don’t want to be numb.

I was encouraged this past week by a reminder that Jesus, when faced with hard things, spent a lot of time praying the Psalms.  Throughout the gospels, we see Jesus echoing words from various Psalms.  In fact, it’s the book that Jesus is recorded as quoting more than any other book.  When He was pressed, it was the Psalms that came out.  

Jesus used the words of the Psalms as the language for His prayers.  So in moments where we don’t even know how to pray, the Psalms can become our language too.

There is no fancy plan.  There has been no exegetical study.  I am learning that the Psalms are not to be understood so much as they are to be prayed.  They put words to the emotions we are having, and they take them to Jesus.  

You see, I think there is something Holy about this season we are in.  

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that we are unable to do anything on our own.  The truth is, we never could.  

Any illusion that suggested otherwise was exactly that, an illusion.  So in my helplessness, I turn to Him.  And I pray the Psalms.

Want to join me?

Just praying one Psalm a day.  Starting at the beginning.  And if you miss a day, it’s ok.  Just keep going.  And when you get to something that you feel, that you identify with, feel it.  Allow yourself to feel it in the presence of Jesus.  Welcome Him into that place of pain or fear or anger.  He’s been waiting for you to invite Him into that place.  Because it’s the only way you will heal.

Praying for you, Friends.

Rach