GIVE IT SPACE BUT NOT A PLACE
“Those who sow their tears as seeds will reap a harvest with joyful shouts of glee. They may weep as they go out carrying their seed to sow, but they will return with joyful laughter and shouting with gladness as they bring back armloads of blessing and a harvest overflowing!”
Psalms 126:5-6 TPT
For the past two months or so, I have carried a deep burden. For weeks I have had the feeling of tipping into tears. The lump in my throat and the tightness in my chest became a daily presence. I was grieving, burdened, and felt helpless.
I would lay on the floor and weep before the Lord my concerns. I begged for a different outcome or a shift. Nothing. Day after day, I woke to a lump in my throat and the ever-present knot in my neck and shoulders.
I rebuked a spirit of oppression, fear, and anxiety but still no breakthrough. I cranked worship music, quoted scripture, and listened to encouraging sermons. Crickets. Days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, and I wondered if I would feel any relief from the anguish.
The other morning, the Lord dropped in my spirit, “Grief does not need cheering up,” as I thought about those words, I considered their importance. Yes, I want joy, but true joy is not absent of sorrow; it’s strength in our time of mourning. You don’t cheer up grief; you heal from it. Joy comes. That’s the promise in our weeping.
We need to feel the hurt, emptiness, or heartache because it’s necessary. Pain reveals where we need healing. It draws us close to the heart of the Father while our brokenness draws Him near to us.
We cannot distract or entertain the anguish away. It must have space and time. And though we long to feel normal again, some things will never be the same, and that is another layer to our grief we must grapple with and confront. Our life has changed.
You’re not human if you haven’t had some form of suffering in your life. And though death is a giant contributor to sorrow, it is not the only supplier of this dandy emotion. There’s rejection, betrayal, financial ruin, divorce, and life shifting when we’re not ready.
I have found myself anxious over situations utterly out of my control, as I am sure you also have. Choices loved ones make that break our hearts—mistakes made by another that personally affect us or consequences that fall on the family because of one person’s decision. This place here is where I feel the grief that births the burden to pray for a breakthrough. Read that again!
We feel the instance that cuts away something or someone but, in turn, also slices into us a transformation in our lives we weren’t ready to face. What comes next is the unknown, and grief can help us transition into the new if we allow it to do its work.
Grief has a way of making us feel connected to what we’ve lost, but it’s meant to help us adjust to the emptiness we endure. I refer to grief as an amputation. We have phantom pains of what was, and grieving is the medication to adapt to what is and what will be.
When we are enduring profound moments of distress, we must be vigilant. A spirit of grief will sneak in and create conflict in us; we long for peace in this pain, but the pain is what connects us to what we have lost. There in lies the struggle, longing to hold on yet learning to let go.
A few mornings ago, as I mustered once more to face a day with a lump in my throat and a knot in my stomach, I heard the Holy Spirit drop this line in my heart concerning the burden I was carrying and the sorrow and grief I was feeling, “Give them space, but not a place.”
As I pondered this revelation, I could sense there was more to it than just a nice quote. I sat for a while and listened to Jesus speak to me. This is what I heard and dictated into my phone,
“Fighting a spirit of disappointment or discouragement while you’re in a waiting season for your breakthrough looks like praise. It looks like acknowledging your pain but worshiping your healer. It looks like grieving your losses while you’re grateful for your blessings. It looks like declaring the Lord gives and takes away, blessed, be His name. Amid our deepest ache! It looks like taking a shower, getting dressed, and doing life when it hurts to breathe.”
Here is what I know, friends, weeping last for a night- or more like a night season, but His True Joy does come. But in the process of waiting for the morning, the reality is you are facing some tear-filled nights.
Be encouraged; it will pass. Your breakthrough will come! Your morning joy is sure to bubble and percolate again. Your walk will have pep in its step, and your shoulders will be straight with courage.
Take heart, my warrior friends. No fat lady is singing yet. It’s not over. You will rise from your ashes with a victory song, so worship in the fire, sing in the trenches! One word from Father God will shift it all. And though life may not look like it used to, it will be beautiful because it will bear the handprints of God!
Holdfast and wait on the Lord. He will not only give you strength, but He will also renew the bits of it that are on vapors. I believe breakthroughs are coming!!!
“Let my passion for life be restored, tasting joy in every breakthrough you bring to me. Hold me close to you with a willing spirit that obeys whatever you say.” Psalm 51:12 TPT
Unshakeable coming February 2023
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