June Prayer Prompt

Ruah still exists down low

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to go on a short two-day retreat. That Friday my husband came home from his hospital job and shared with me how a family on his floor saw one of their worst days that day, and it deeply affected him too. His job over the last seven years has been a true testimony to the belief that people are called to be where they are. He sees wild, radical, heartbreaking things. Walks through them with families, and comes home and our littles have no idea, they just see Daddy for who he is: calm, patient, happy, fun, safe. He does not do it all on his own accord. The Lord is truly mighty.

I left for the retreat not even an hour after he got home, and sat with the news the entire drive. I haven’t had bad days even close to this family’s bad day. It was hard for me to wrap my head around, and easy for me to feel the sorrow of.

I have found, through my own experience, that there is no answer for what happens to the tears that fall as a result of our personal sorrowful mysteries. But I have found a hope that when you offer them up, ask them to be caught… they are. He catches them. I don’t know what He does with them, when we will see the fruits of them. But I know He catches them. And in that car ride as I was mentally trying to pivot from mom + listening wife to a tired husband to retreat participant, I prayed that the family’s tears would be caught by the Lord.

That night, in seeing a room full of people praise the Lord joyfully and with arms raised high, in the same hour the hubs told me how his day at work went, it honestly felt wrong. It felt contradictory. How can praise and sorrow take up the same space? Sometimes I feel like they shouldn’t? Not that they can’t, but that they ought not to.

My second thought was… maybe it’s okay to sing hallelujah from your knees. (I could have sworn Momma Mary whispered this into my ears.) Maybe your arms aren’t above your head, but they are open in your lap. It happened in history, a tangible event we cannot deny: the lamb overcame. Suffering doesn’t change that He is alive. And I think with praise often comes this assumption that you are praising in joy. Or that you need to be.

Maybe that’s not always the case? It doesn’t have to be. I think that creates space for Real Life.

I heard Mary whisper again, “you can acknowledge Him from your brokenness.” It can look different. Your praise can look different. And that is okay.

The valley may be restricting, and lonely, and really hard. I think it is easy to feel ill-equipped. But we aren’t out of being able to speak Truth in the valley.

We named our third baby (miscarried) Rue, after the term ruah, which is the breath of God. It was my longest pregnancy thus far in our journey, and it felt like a breath of fresh air until our loss. But even in the face of our loss, we didn’t want to forget that breath. Enter: Rue. Ruah. The breath of God.

It is oddly humorous to me how that little desire - to not forget the breath - has stuck with me since. Ruah still exists down low. We can still breathe it in. So that we, too, can keep living.

Maybe that’s a truly deep form of praise: doing it from your knees, from your heartache, from your suffering. Not just in happy. But when you’re hurting too. Not with expectation that praise will take it all away like some fairytale but with the trust that you’re choosing to spend time with Someone who knows hurt too. And who sees your heart and still chooses to hold it.

Your griefs deserve to be grieved. What happened, what hasn’t happened. To you, to a loved one. They deserve to be grieved. And the Lord honors those. Which further supports that their existence doesn’t mean you don’t have faith. Through the Paschal Mystery, which you and I will contemplate and pray with for our entire lives (honored to do it with you), praise and sorrow can belong in the same space. The Lord made it so. He has slowly, slowly showed me little glimpses of how they do. I see it as my little mission to not forget that.

“I don’t have faith if I feel sad” is a boldfaced lie. Performance doesn’t belong at the foot of the cross. He asked us to leave it at the bottom of the hill.

His promise in the valley is that desolation becomes intimacy. Isn’t that wild? Even thinking of the promise itself, before stepping into how to live that out, I think deserves our prayer time.

I think the Lord wants you to hold on to praise from exactly where you are too. To know that He knows. He knows, friend. He knows. And that changes everything, if we let it.

xoxo Sarah