When I was praying about this new year and what God was doing, I felt this relief flood over me. Jesus would still be working big things, but I felt His desire to restore us all to rest after this season of upheaval.
I felt Him say to calm down, to let things be put back into order, and to allow the time and space for Him to comfort our broken hearts.
After life traumas, it’s so tempting for us to yank ourselves up by the bootstraps and make ourselves busy. But often, after trauma, what our hearts need is a place to dive deep into comfort and to feel ourselves held. I saw this as God’s desire for this year: to hold us as we recover from the hardships of the last two years.
When something needs to get done, I see Jesus’ gentle hand in leading us to work, but in that place of being held. The priority for Him is that we recover in His peace.
It makes sense to me. After times of trauma or stress in my life, God brought me to a time of resting in His arms and being comforted by His light. After those times, I can’t imagine continuing in intensity in the same way without a break. My heart needed something different, and that was okay.
Now, I feel God taking His body into a corporate time of rest. Yes, He will also do big things. But He is telling us to be easy on ourselves as we spring back up from 2020 and into 2021. I see Him wanting to heal up all of the wounds we have from these last years. Some of the wounds are ones we may not know we have. I see His heart to comfort His children, just as a parent would comfort a child after a hard fall (or getting bullied, or getting sick, or feeling alone). The emotional, physical, and mental changes from these years have been immense and highly charged, and I see Jesus being gentle with us as we return to places of rest and peace.
I see Him taking us into places of health in mind, body, and spirit. I see Him being our comforter. Again, He will do big things, but more than those goals I see His heart for us.
What would it look like to let Him heal us after this season? I know, for me, I want to bring Him all of my pain and confusion and how I have felt jolted these last two years. I want to talk to Him about it and cry with Him and let Him minister to me about even the littler things. Yes, there was Covid, but also there were so many social changes in the world and I tried my best to keep up. There was tension from being stressed and confined. There was harshness from all sides to the other sides. There was pressure to find the right way and then to do it well. There was exhaustion and confusion. I see Him wanting to take my hand and sit with me as I grieve and heal from all of it.
And I see Him doing this with His bride as a whole. He has made us strong warriors, but we are still His kids. We are still His loved ones that He comforts. We are still His little ones who fall on their bike and feel the pain. He doesn’t yell at us to get on the bike and get moving. I see Him assessing the pain, looking for wounds, hugging us, and making sure we know we are loved. And as we get back on the bike, we are better bikers (who are more peaceful and calm and fearless) because we know if we fall, He will be right there to comfort and help us again.
Opmerkingen