“You know what?” I said to my husband. “I just want you to hold me.”
And there I sat, on the couch beside him, head against his chest as he ran his fingers through my hair. Sometimes you just needed to be held.
In the preceding minutes, I had shared with him my feelings. So much was going on, and you know that old saying, “when it rains, it pours?” Well, it kinda felt like that. I had even chuckled at the irony that during my “storm” of circumstances we were also facing an impending Category 3 Hurricane. Something had to give!
I had told my husband, “my faith tells me it’s going to be okay, and I totally believe that too. But sometimes faith feels heavy.”
What I meant by that was, I believed God would take care of us. In the midst of looming unemployment, I knew He held us in His hands. With bills falling behind, I knew His plans were to prosper us. With so many darn things I had zero control over (a hurricane coming while my only shelter was an RV just being one of), I still knew God was in control. He had proven His faithfulness to me time and time again, miraculously so. In the Old Testament they used to erect altars made of stone where God had done something miraculous. They called them Stones of Remembrance, and I had so many stones leading down the path of my past that I never looked back in regret. I would only trip over the tried and true trail of rocks behind me. My point being, I believed in the deepest part of my heart and soul that God was good, and He would work all things for my good. Yet…
Why is it that you can have faith, yet still feel fallen? I mean, how can you hand it over to God, yet it still feels so heavy? You don’t want it to, but it does. It’s like it’s bone heavy, as if your body won’t listen to what your spirit is saying. My soul said, “I am rescued,” but my flesh felt worn out from all the back and forth that uncertain circumstances had slung around in my head like a game of air hockey.
“Lord,” my husband spoke, “I pray that Brie would feel the same peace in her mind and body that she feels in her spirit.”
And that was all he said. I lay against his chest, my head moving slowly up and down with each inhalation and following exhalation. I could hear the rhythmic sound of rain pitter-pattering against the metal roof of our RV. It sang a soothing song in harmony with the lub-dub, lub-dub of my husband’s heartbeat. His fingers raked softly through my hair, each stroke feeling like the best touch I had felt all day. My body relaxed, my muscles settled, my spirit called out to the Lord. It was going to be okay. My heart knew it; my body just needed reminding.
I needed reminding that yeah, sometimes faith does feel heavy, but my God still carries it for me. It made me think of a box of tissues. You grabbed a tissue in your hand, but over time, as your nervous fingers wrung the life from the thin paper, you had to pull out a fresh one. The only difference was, God’s tissue box of faithfulness was never-ending. You could pull out Kleenex, by Kleenex, and it never ran out. His mercy was unending. Even when I was worn thin, He held an abundance for me.
I was reminded of my humanness, and acutely aware of how much I need my Savior. Maybe faith gets so heavy sometimes so we’ll remember from where our strength is derived. Sometimes all you can say is “help,” and I guess that’s why the Spirit intercedes for us in the moments where we barely have the strength to pray. I fell asleep quickly, tired yet trusting, without the words to pray, but with my soul reaching out feeble, fatigued fingers for His faithful hand to grasp. It’s okay to buckle under the weight. He’s never asked us to carry it anyway.
