I’ve not had any words lately.
That’s a strange thing for me. It’s disconcerting.
I’ve not posted anything on Facebook in over a week until tonight, when I got the news that my sweet grandmother has entered her final days here on earth.
I’ve posted things here, but I’ve since removed them.
The thoughts in my mind are so scattered and deep that they do not belong on paper. I can’t even decipher them. I want to pray, to write up scripture work, to write. But I have nothing legible to write right now. My soul is hollow. The echo in my mind is deafening. I find I have no words for God. I open scripture and I open a fresh, clean document—and nothing happens. No words, no prayers, no insights. My heart is heavy.
The amazing chapter of Romans 8 addresses this:
I am weak tonight. I’ve been battling a strange illness the past two days that continues to linger tonight. But this weakness is more than a physical weakness. For me, it is a weakness of not knowing what to say. These verses tell me that the Spirit helps us in our weakness.
I don’t know what to pray, and yet we are told here that the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep or words. Groanings is an accurate word. Grieved. Haunted. There are no words.
How beautiful verse 27 is. I don’t know what God’s will is right now. I don’t see it. I don’t sense Him. But the Spirit intercedes according to the will of God. There is huge relief in that.
I’m reading R.C. Sproul’s book “The Mystery of the Holy Spirit”. And it is; it is a mystery. One we can’t wrap our minds around. Or at least, I can’t. But my grandmother could. She was confident about the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost, whichever term suited her on that particularly day.
I was able to write a post of FB tonight about my grandmother, the first coherent thing I’ve written in days:
It looks like my sweet grandmother may we walking her final days on this earth. She taught me how to be strong, resilient and independent, and in these last 3 years or so, she has taught me how to worship God with full abandon. As she possibly spends the next few days living out her life here, I know that she will eagerly await entering her final Home with a beautiful smile and a couple of “Hallelujah’s” and “Praise Jesus'”. Our deep sadness will pale greatly next to the joy she will know in going Home.
I will miss her. I miss my mom. Sometimes this weight that God has blessed me with is so heavy to bear hear on this earth; I long to go home. And “blessed” is the right term, for He is sovereign.
My soul groans tonight. My words seem useless tonight; senseless, even. I close this post with Psalm 4. It is a Psalm that I am praying daily right now during my morning disciplines for other reasons, but it seems to fit here tonight as well. Read it carefully and think of your own life. I dare say you will see your life in the midst of this Psalm as well.
Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!
You have given me relief when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!
2 O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?
How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? Selah
3 But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself;
the Lord hears when I call to him.
ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah
and put your trust in the Lord.
6 There are many who say, “Who will show us some good?
Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!”
7 You have put more joy in my heart
than they have when their grain and wine abound.
8 In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.