Cliche title, I know.
Not even four days ago I would’ve laughed at myself for writing that.
Not an amused laugh either, a very sarcastic sardonic condescending laugh.
The word "overwhelmed" in my life right now, is an understatement to be sure; and the idea of not being overcome seems a little too simple and pretty to me. Especially when life is so messy.
It's a horrific feeling when things are becoming “too much” and you can’t do anything about it. The pressure in your chest that keeps getting heavier; the feeling of your body being weighed down by so much you can't fix or remedy on your own. Your mind overcome with fears and anxieties and uncertainty.
I thought I understood what being overwhelmed felt like. I mean, I remember being in college and having 4 papers due on completely different books I didn’t read. I remember going to funeral after funeral after seemingly never ending funeral for years. And just a few months back I had another “episode” ( that’s what the doc calls them), a full blown anxiety attack prolonged and made worse by my condition/illness/whatever-this-is and I remember that crushing feeling all too well. I started going to therapy because God literally had to sit me down and say “Listen, you need to stop carrying all of this on your own, you need help letting me help you.”
And yet, that was just the beginning. Things actually got worse from there and I did NOT see it coming.
I thought, for sure “I’ve hit the bottom of this pit. I’m getting help, I asked for help, what more do you want from me?” I was certain it couldn’t get any deeper, there was nothing more to dig my shovel into, there’s nothing deeper than the bottom of the bottom of the bottom...but of course, I was wrong.
I thought I knew “overly overwhelmed” but sitting here, writing this right now, I can tell you with absolute certainty, I’m a naive little thing sometimes.
Try overwhelmed AND OVERRUN, try that one on for size. That’s not just “things are too much, I can’t breathe, I can’t function”, that’s the “I’m 100% positive I’m living in another dimension, what is life? who is God?" kind of confusing agony. It’s the type where your heart is constantly fluttering in your chest and you feel on the edge of having a heart attack every minute of the day and you’re literally just trying to focus on butterflies and trees and positive thoughts so you don’t actually lose it, kind of overwhelmed.
That kind, yeah...that was new.
But here I am and guess what? I’m surviving. Day by day, breath by breath, worship song to worship song, I’m still here. My heart is still fluttering, I am still overwhelmed but I know that no matter how this feels right now, I am not overcome. So I wanted to sit with you for a minute, as hard as this is for me to do at this particular moment in time, and I just wanted to be real with you and also encourage you. From this pit that I have found myself relegated to for the next little while, I want to encourage you with the same encouragement God has been giving me every minute of every day, “It’s going to be okay”.
I know it doesn’t feel like it and I know that can be terrifying but emotional and mental pain will not kill you, I repeat it will not kill you. Physical pain even, for the most part, will not kill you. Pain is an alarm system, it tells us something is gravely wrong and it’s there and it hurts so that it can incite us and incite others to get help. It’s not the end of you, it’s the beginning of healing, it’s the start of resolution. Sometimes dysfunctional things, generational curses, sinful patterns have to be broken so that something healthy and good and right can grow there again. And the breaking is hard and overwhelming but it’s the first step in the process of being okay.
Strange isn’t it? How the worst feeling, the worst pain and the worst situation that you can possibly imagine is actually a beginning. I find that to be so bizarre but the truth of it is all around us in the natural world.
Think of a seed (I know this analogy came out of left field but bare with me). I’m sure if a seed had feelings and emotions it probably wouldn’t enjoy the process of being broken completely apart in order for something new to grow out of it, in order for its potential to spring forth. I’m sure being planted would feel like death and burial to the seed, wouldn’t it? And it kind of is in a way, parts of the seed have to get broken and have to die in order for the best parts of it’s potential to grow and become something bigger and better than just a seed. Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that God is breaking you apart. What I'm saying is that there's this beautiful principle about the character of God inherent in nature. A principle that showcases how God can take what looks and feels like an ending and make it a new beginning. I’m sure the process of transformation for the caterpillar isn’t as beautiful or as painless as we imagine it to be either. Have you seen a caterpillar? Can you imagine being a caterpillar and living your merry little life eating leaves only to one day feel something beyond your control start changing within you to the point of literally shedding your body and sprouting wings?! Traumatic? I think so! Maybe it’s not painful, maybe I’m wrong but to me that sounds agonizing. Maybe God made it so the caterpillar in its cocoon doesn’t feel the pain of transformation and the breaking of the old that no longer serves the new but unfortunately for us, it usually doesn't work like that.
We feel every broken bone and ligament, every emotional tear, every single bit of friction and of course, the enemy is always there to push it just that little bit further over the edge.
We are overwhelmed because we feel everything and we carry everything with us or at least I do. But lately I have been learning that I can’t do that anymore. I cannot carry all of this weight on my back and expect to be okay or expect to function normally. I don’t get a say in the weighted sacks that get chucked onto my back and into my life as time passes but I do have a choice as to whether I’m going to pick them up and carry them for the rest of my life or lay them down at the feet of Jesus and let Him carry them for me (or burn them to bits, whatever works).
Sometimes I think God is probably looking at us with all of these weights/sacks on our backs, these little tiny humans carrying mountains on their shoulders and He’s thinking, “That’s ridiculous, give it to me! Don’t you see how much bigger and stronger and more capable I am of handling all of that? Why do you insist on carrying it?” It reminds me of when I was a little girl and I wanted to help carry in the groceries or carry some heavy item into the house and I was so determined to do it on my own. My little arms would be shaking, I would be in pain pretending like it wasn’t heavy at all, dragging it or lifting it half a centimetre off the floor only to drop it again after a few steps, and my dad would look at me with a sideways smile and say, “That’s too heavy for you, let me grab it”. I would protest vehemently and say “No! I got it!” but he knew I didn’t have it and He would grab it out of my hands and walk right past me like it was nothing. I would be standing there sweating and sore and mad and he just lifted it like it was nothing, like it was as light as a feather. So then I would get even madder because I would think “This whole time you let me drag this thing from the car when you could’ve carried it yourself in the first place, what am I out here for?!”. And I can’t help but laugh at that image in my mind when I think of myself and God. This weight I’ve been carrying is real and painful and hard but to think of how big God is and me sticking up my tiny defiant little chin, determined to carry all of my weight, all on my own is kind of amusing to me because I am so obviously not the person for the job.
This is what I’m learning right now, here with you live and in person or rather, via blog.
I am learning that it’s not my weight to carry and that just because someone chucks something on my back or the enemy drops a boulder on my shoulders (rhyme scheme on point), doesn’t mean I have to take it. I don’t have to accept it, I have a choice, I get to say “Hey dad, this one’s all you” and leave it in God’s hands. That doesn’t mean it won’t hurt, that doesn’t mean I’m pretending things aren’t happening, it means that I know my limits and I know He’s limitless. I know that I can’t handle this life and its problems and its hopelessness on my own. I know that I can’t save myself, never have been able to save myself, never will be able to save myself, so I can stop trying. I know that I can’t heal other people AT ALL. I can’t make other people do right by me or do right for themselves. I can’t be Jesus, as much as I want to be like Him, I am not Him and I never will be and that’s okay because God didn’t save me so I could be Jesus. He didn’t choose me so that I could be His perfect savior’s cheaper dysfunctional imitation but so that through His son’s power and sacrifice and love, I could be the masterpiece He originally created and intended for me to be. And that’s one of the messages I had mixed up in scripture for a long time because I’ve always heard the phrase “be imitators of Christ” as a command to be like Jesus and it is. We are called to walk like Jesus walked and follow His example but we are also called to be the unique creation God made us to be. It’s not our job to be “savior” it’s our job to be saved and point to the savior. Jesus is the transformative power that turns the potential of a seed into an oak tree and a fuzzy little grubby caterpillar into a butterfly. He does that, not me and not you.
I have more going on in my life,my heart and my mind right now than I have ever had before but I also have this peace I didn’t know I could have and this certainty that had alluded me for so long because I let God have His way and I put everything I was carrying down.
I had no idea I could do that, I didn’t even know how to do it four days ago. I literally was crying out to God saying “I have no idea how to even begin taking this weight off my shoulders, I don’t know how to do this God.” and He just loved me and held me and said “you just have to trust me with it and let it go”. For me, part of that meant sharing my burdens with others and letting people in so God could use them to help me and support me through all of this. The other part of it was realizing that God is in control and His good and perfect plan is still valid and still working in my life and in others lives, for their good, even though I can't see it. And an even deeper part of that trust and letting go, was realizing that I had been treating God like my backup instead of my lifeline. Not that He wasn’t the most important thing to me but that I didn’t breathe Him in like I breathe the oxygen I take in every hour of everyday. I need Him to survive and I was treating Him like I only needed Him to thrive. I had to hit pause for a second and come back to reality and face the fact that I cannot afford to put other things first right now, I cannot afford distractions, I cannot afford what that will cost me. I have to be single-minded and fully focused on my father every minute of the day and keep putting those weights in His hands and letting them go. My eyes have to be fixed until I go cross-eyed on Jesus and on His grace because I NEED Him right now.
There’s still more for me to learn about not being overcome and handing things over to God. Like I said, I am going through this as we speak so, I’m currently putting it into practice and doing my best and I’ll probably muck it up a few times along the way. But I just wanted the other person out there who is feeling how I’ve been feeling, overly overwhelmed and overcome by situations and emotions, to know that it’s not over and it’s going to be okay. You CAN lay your weights on the ground at the feet of God because I’m doing it and if I can do it you can do it too. Nothing is too heavy for Him to carry but there’s a lot of stuff that weighs too heavily on us and we have to stop trying to carry it on our own.
Also, it’s important to realize that you are being carried too and that is yet another reason why you will not be overcome because no matter what you’ve got on your shoulders or on your back pulling you down, God’s holding you up and keeping you lifted when you’re too weak to stand. Even when you refuse to hand over your junk, God’s still holding onto you and you are not alone and He will see you through it so don’t give up. But just so you know, you don’t have to carry it, you weren’t meant to carry it and it’s not your job to carry it. You can hand it over and say “Father God, this one is all you. I can’t carry this, it’s too heavy” and He will pick it up and heal it and use it to help transform your potential into a beautiful reality.
He is strong and willing and able and ready for all of it, all of the messy broken bits, all of the support and comfort you need, all of the crushing disappointment you feel, all of the trauma and pain, all of it. He already has a plan, beauty from the ashes is His specialty, we just have to get to that place of trust with Him where we not only trust He will bring us through it but also, that He is prepared to carry it and/or carry us. Trust starts with surrender, it starts with letting go of what's beyond our power, our strength and our control and believing in the promises of God as we do so.
Isaiah 41:10 says, "Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with My righteous right hand."
Within this one verse there is so much truth and wisdom and affirmation for us, the overwhelmed. "I will strengthen you" when you're too weak to stand. "I will help you" surrender and let go of your burdens. "I will hold on to you" when you can't find the strength to hold on any longer. I've got you! "I am with you". "Do not be afraid, for I am your God".
What you’ve been dealing with lately- it’s a lot, I know but it’s not enough to overpower your God; it’s not enough to undercut your destiny and your potential. It’s a lot but it’s not enough to pluck you from the hands of God. It’s a lot but God’s got the strength and the power and the grace to walk you through it. It may feel like death and burial and hopelessness right now but God won’t let it kill you or rob you of your future. It may be terrifying and heart wrenching right now but God gets the last word. YOUR God, YOUR heavenly father, the lover of YOUR soul gets the last word on your life, your future and your past and what becomes of it all. The God of new beginnings is YOUR God and He is telling you, "Do not be afraid, for I AM YOUR God". "Choose to have faith in who I am instead of giving into fear, Choose me, trust me, because I am your God and I've got you!"
Overwhelmed but not overcome. That’s our promise; that’s our truth; that’s our reality.
"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." John 16:33
"For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith." 1 John 5:4
"Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." 1 John 4:4
"If I say, "My foot is slipping," Your faithful love will support me, Lord. When I am filled with cares, Your comfort brings me joy." Psalm 94:18-19
"You will keep the mind that is dependent on You in perfect peace, for it is trusting in You." Isaiah 26:3
"Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30
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