Small enough

I suspect God is constantly trying to get my attention. A word of kindness here. A word of warning there. Sometimes I’m good at listening. Sometimes I can’t slow down long enough to think. Let alone to sit with Him and have a cup of tea. Yet, gently He presses.

This isn’t the forum for the rolling kairos that God has been speaking to me for the last few months. But I’ve shared with a few of you the areas where He’s probing me.

First was my identity.
"Elizabeth, do you see yourself as what you can produce? Or as a daughter of the king?"

Then it was my happiness.
"Don’t you think I can make you happy? You seem to believe I’m either apathetic or incompetent."

I once read a book in which a woman asks, “What would you do if you were carrying the world on your shoulders?” and the man she’s speaking to says, “Shrug.” In ways big and small He seems to whisper, "Set it down Elizabeth. Set it down."

Right now I’m reading Bird by Bird, a book about writing by one of my favorite authors. She tells this story…

"When I was 21, I had my tonsils removed… afterward swallowing hurt so much that I could barely open my mouth for a straw. I had prescription painkillers. When they ran out and the pain hadn’t I called the nurse and said that she would really need to send another prescription over and maybe a little mixed grill of drugs because I was also feeling somewhat anxious. But she wouldn’t… [She said that] I needed to buy some gum of all things and chew it vigorously – the thought of which made me clutch my throat. She explained that when we have a wound in our body, the nearby muscles cramp around it to protect it from any more violation and from infection, and that I would need to use these muscles if I wanted them to relax again. So…I began to chew with skepticism and hostility. The first bite caused a ripping sensation in the back of my throat, but within minutes all the pain was gone – permanently. I think something similar happens with our psychic muscles. They cramp around our wounds – the pain from our childhood, the losses and disappointments of adulthood, the humiliation suffered in both – to keep us from getting hurt in the same place again, to keep foreign substances out. So the wounds never have a chance to heal."

And for all of my analysis and talk about how the difficulties of my past have shaped me into the person I am today (for good and for ill), the muscles of my character contract around my wounds to protect me from reinjury. I don’t ask God for anything because I’m afraid of being disappointed when He says no. I choose to be the tough girl who can handle life alone because I secretly fear that alone is exactly what I am. I leave people before they can leave me. And for all the ways in which my eyes have been opened to a parent’s love by having a daughter of my own, my muscles contract around the fear that I’m different than Avery because she is lovable and I am not.

I am seldom reinjured in those spaces. But I’m also never really healed.

Not yet anyway.

I’m flying over the American Midwest as I write this. Before me, a glowing screen. Beside me, a window into the world below. Brown and dead from winter wind, yet the intricacy of the landscape leaves me awestruck at the power and artistry of our creator. I was getting lost in the bigness of God as I descended from the clouds, until I caught sight of a flock of sheep. I was reminded of the bible’s promises that God is our shepherd. And that He would go after even one of His sheep if it were to go astray. I may not be astray. But I frequently have one foot outside the pen. I’m sure God finds this annoying.

I’m reminded of a song I haven’t listened to in years. One that captures the vulnerability I try so often to keep at bay. The need for a God so big and yet small enough for my tiny world. This is my prayer as I fly home tonight:

oh great God
be small enough to hear me now

there were times when I was crying from the dark of daniel’s den
and I have asked you once or twice if you would part the sea again
but tonight I do not need a fiery pillar in the sky
just want to know you’re going to hold me if I start to cry

oh great God
be small enough to hear me now

there have been moments when I could not face goliath on my own
and how could I forget we’ve marched around our share of jericho’s?
but I will not be setting out a fleece for you tonight
just want to know that everything will be alright

oh great God
be close enough to feel you now

oh praise and all the honor be
to the God of ancient mysteries
who’s every sign and wonder turn the pages of our history

but tonight my heart is heavy
and I cannot keep from whispering this prayer

are you there?

and I know you could leave writing on the wall that’s just for me
or send wisdom while I’m sleeping like in solomon’s sweet dreams
but I don’t need the strength of sampson or a chariot in the end

i just want to know that you still know how many hairs are on my head

oh great God
be small enough to hear me now.