When You Have No Words...

For as long as I can remember I have been a verbal processor. 

Since I was a small girl I remember my chosen method of processing has been the written word. That is where I feel most comfortable with my own "voice". 

For those of you who have followed us as family over the past decade or longer you know that while I was battling cancer I wrote almost every single day. It was how I could connect with God and how I could cope with the battle I was in. It was also the one way I knew that I could leave a piece of myself here for my husband and my children if God decided to call me home. 

If you were following us two years ago you know when I gave birth to my sweet Kanton Jasper, who was born sleeping, that I spent a great deal of time writing about my grief and how I was processing it. Again, it helped me process along with preserved his memory. 

Writing is just what I have been able to do to help me cope with the things that life throws at me. 

In fact, I feel so much more drawn to writing during the hard times than I ever do when things are going smoothly. It all comes down to how I process I guess. 

Writing is therapeutic for me. 

However, I recently went through something and I just had no words. 

None. 

I tried to pour out my heart several times just as I had the thousands of times before and nothing would come out. 

I felt lost. I felt crushed and I had no way of getting out from under the weight of it all. 

I didn't even have the words to pray. I just cried. And cried. And cried. 

I sat in church that Sunday morning and I coldn't think of one word to say to God. Not because I was angry at Him... but I was just consumed by pain and hurt. It was like I was paralyzed.

That is when I felt it... It was like God was saying to me... "It is okay.... just cry. I know what your tears mean." So I did. I just cried and it was like every tear that fell was a prayer to God all on its own.  

Over the next several days I kept trying to go back to my writing. I wanted to have the words so badly. I still had nothing. It was like I was in a fog. It began to weigh on me even more. How could I process all of this heaviness if I couldn't talk to God? 

That is when I remembered a very special scripture. A lady shared this with me after we lost one of our sons 13 years ago and she handed me a small glass bottle to go with it. It said: 

You keep track of all my sorrows.

You have collected all my tears in your bottle.

You have recorded each one in your book.

- Psalm 56:8 (NLT)

I didn't need words. 

He already knew. 

He knew my heart. 

My pain. 

He knew all of it. 

So I just sat and cried with Him some more because that is where I was at. That is what I could do in that moment. That is how I could connect with Him. That is how the healing could begin. 

So often we put so much pressure on ourselves to do things "just so". I think we feel like we have to put on this "brave face" - even before the Lord. 

The bottom line is He just wants us to connect with Him.

Raw. 

Ragged.

And real.