Setting it All Down

"To the woman 

who carries the hurt

of everyone else around her,

I pray you find a place

to set it all down."

--Ashley O.

She knows me so well.  My daughter has watched and listened to me for long enough to know about the weight I carry for others.  A couple of nights ago she sent me the above words.

The past weeks have been heavy...overwhelming and grueling at times but Sunday morning in the sacred space where God and I sat, I knew I had come up against a wall.  I felt empty and inconsolable...exhausted in deep ways. The pain and heartbreak of some that I love has been nonstop for too long now.  It all feels like too much, too awful much to carry.

So I am paying attention...because I need to.  A cancellation this morning has given me the opportunity for me to sequester myself in a silent retreat for several days next week.  This comes to me as a grace of God.  It both scares me and frees me if I'm honest.  No phone, electronics, no relational connections with those I love.  Hours upon hours of no ministry output; only the input of the Trinity to speak and me to listen. My spirit craves this and fears it.  Still I will go to this place where I can set it all down.

And when I return, the ongoing guidance of some wise and gifted people will enable me to learn more holistic ways of caring for the many I love.  It will be a journey. I did not arrive here overnight.  Step by step I will invite the Trinity into the empty, tired, broken places of me and walk His new path...the one I catch a glimmer of just over the horizon.