Lift it up.

It's so easy to understand my strength if I remember that You're right there with me. Without You, my weakness was overwhelming. Mind-numbingly, heart-stoppingly, world-shakingly overwhelming. Everybody in pain and suffering seems to want to compare hurt, "you think that's bad, I had..." and so on. I've been in a place of pain, no greater or worse. Not meant for comparison, just simply there and felt deeply. There's no gain in weighing it out, it just hurt, and it was substantial enough to overwhelm me. Pain has a funny way of creeping up on you when you're not able to deal with it; when it can win. It never shows up amongst those who can help, it never comes out when it can be cured; it simply works in shadows and silences waiting to strike a vulnerable heart. That is, if you're waiting for your pain to strike.

Lift it up. One of those weird phrases I've heard repeated in many contexts and I've never really connected with it in hearing it alone. Are you saying I should, elevate my hurt? Like, closer to the roof type thing? Like, slow the blood flow, like, a medical situation? Or perhaps I dropped something on my foot, so I should lift it off there? I never really connected with this phrase. Fully stated, lift it up to God. Again, so vague to me, so unspecific. God's all around me, why do I need elevation? Can't He come down here to come take away my pains? Why do I need to be lifted up to Him? Why do I have to do the work? As I said, it's never really something I understood from a spectator's shoes.

Then I lifted it up. I finally got it. It's not about anything other than saying, God, there is this hurt, this pain, this anxiety, this worry, this fear, this doubt, this overwhelming, crippling, crushing woe that I can't deal with alone. For me, this hurt has looked many ways. Before I knew Him so dearly, "I'm alone, and I hate to feel lonely. I have nobody, no friends, nobody and life is overwhelming." Crying out without direction or even knowledge I was being heard. Before I even knew what I was doing, I was lifting it up. It didn't take faith, it took desperation, and He heard me.

More recently, in a moment of indecision, when life presented me with two paths and an unwillingness to stay the course of destruction and self-abuse "I need a change. I need something to change in my life. I hate what I'm doing, who I'm becoming, and the fact that my life is the result of the expectations of others. Please, give me a way to change." In a time of sheer frustration, a plea for help emerged, and I lifted it up. Again, to a God whom I was unfamiliar with. A murky face in a distant place, a possibility. To Him, I lifted it up.

And finally, just tonight. Fully aware of God, fully aware of what He's been doing in my life, and how He has been there for me before. Fully aware that though I've hurt, it's never been too much to bear, and never stopped me from seeking Him. Conscious of all this, tonight I lifted up the lives of those around me in prayer. With so much hurt and brokenness spilling out all around, coming from me and those I love, I lifted it up. My knowledge of God doesn't make this time any different, it doesn't guarantee a quick fix or a reserve space in the prayer line-up. All it does is give me that chance to face pain, to attack it head on. I've waited for desperation in the past. It has been torture enduring something as it festers deep within, just waiting for it to strike in those moments of weakness. Not anymore. Tonight, I lifted it up.