“I can’t always pray lately.
I look around and my heart is tired of trying to love God’s people who seem heck bent on being as unlovable as possible. For real…some of us are just off the actual rails and loving these folks seems like a tall order.
I, of course, remain super lovable at all times.
Don’t say a word.
And, quite honestly, God’s people do not put me in a praying mood. I walk around feeling slightly ragey actually for about 78% of the day.
And then, last week, I was hit out of the blue with what turned out to be extreme vertigo, which seems like way too obvious of a metaphor for actual life right now.
One minute I was practicing yoga on my deck and the next everything was spinning. The world turned upside down (cue Hamilton). I couldn’t tell up from down and I was on my knees trying to crawl for help.
And if this isn’t how 2020 has hit some of us, I do not know what is.
This pandemic has turned our collective worlds upside down and things have been topsy-turvy ever since. And it has not made us super lovable.
Each day we try and tell up from down. Each day we wait for the other shoe to drop. Each day we wonder how much longer this will go on.
Pandemic vertigo man…. it’s a legit thing. And we all have it.
We are all struggling to right ourselves. To make sense of this new landscape. To take a few shaky steps even as the ground feels like it is shifting under us.
If you feel like you are on uncertain ground, you are not alone.
The only way I could move through space when it first hit was by clingy blindly to Todd’s back. He led me forward to a place I could rest and try and still my swirling mind. And this helped…it helps if we can cling to each other.
And then there’s God….man, He just SHOWS UP.
I went into the ER alone (thanks for nothing, pandemic), clinging to my ice cream bucket and also inexplicably my favorite water bottle I brought in with me, and as I watched Todd walk out, I sat and sobbed like a baby. Or maybe like a heartbroken toddler who has been denied the red cup and instead was given the blue one.
I laid alone in a hospital bed, my doomsday-imagining superpower showing itself in full force. I was obviously dying; I was alone, and I couldn’t even see to text anyone I loved. It was just me and my water bottle and my ice cream bucket, shivering in the world’s coldest ER room, gown on top, yoga pants on the bottom, wearing those weird hospital socks they give you with grips on the top and the bottom and I thought this is how it all ends.
I didn’t even know I should worry about this.
And I couldn’t pray. I had no words.
But God was there anyway. I could feel Him in the room…just He and I hanging out and waiting for some answers and all at once I wasn’t even scared. Not one bit. I even TRIED to be scared because…doomsday superpower. But nope. Just peace.
He wasn’t going to let me be alone. He wasn’t going to let my people be alone if something happened to me.
And man, that’s pretty humbling.
He was there, holding me up, sending me an amazing doctor who looked right in my eyes and took charge of all the things, and then a nurse with a delightful Scottish accent and a gleam in his eye which assured me the walls of the MRI machine wouldn’t close in on me, and then good news and medicines of the land which righted my world enough for me to breath.
And He never left me once. Thank you for this, pandemic…you showed me you can take away our ability to be with each other, but you can never, ever take away our ability to be with our God.
He never leaves us. Not when it feels like the worst is happening, not when our world turns upside down, not even when we haven’t been praying or loving on His people.
He is still there.
Take heart friends, all is not lost…nor can it be. Not as long as we have a God like this. And the best part is if you are thinking this love doesn’t apply to you, you are dead wrong. He is there for all of us, we don’t have to earn it or always be the best version of ourselves or even be able to find the words to ask for it.
He will just show up. He loves you and He is love. Full stop.
Even when the world is turned upside down.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Hiding in the Closet with Coffee by Amy Betters-Midtvedt. Do you have a similar experience? We’d like to hear your important journey. Submit your own story here. Be sure to subscribe to our free email newsletter for our best stories, and YouTube for our best videos.
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