"Trials reveal our gods." When my husband said this, I realized it was true. COVID-19 is changing the world around me and I don't want to miss the things I am learning about the Lord and about the "gods" that I serve by default when I am not intenti...
"I am banning myself from Facebook for the rest of the day," I announced to my husband Paul. "I've just seen way too much negativity today."
Being pregnant has made my emotions so much more "extra," so things that normally I'd be able to shake my head at and then ignore, I now find infuriating or irrationally devastating. I've found myself typing out paragraphs of responses to various posts on Facebook, only to pause, re-read what I have written, and recognize that my brilliant riposte is not going to solve anything ultimately. Highlight. Delete. Of course, I think of myself as one of the few sane ones in a sea of irrational adults. But every other adult in this mess thinks the exact same thing, so who am I to claim that I'm different?
I've learned that, most of the time, people turn to social to find affirmation for their opinions. I have rarely seen anyone substantially change their mind because of some duel in Facebook comments. That's why, if I'm going to support a cause or educate people on a controversial topic, I tend to do it offline, in person, and with active use of my resources.
But it's a constant battle to remind myself of this, especially with third trimester hormones inciting far stronger emotional reactions than I'm used to processing.
You would think a worldwide catastrophe would bring people together--and in some ways it is--but it's also driving people apart. Newton's Third Law of Motion has never seemed more apropos: To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. As the actions have become more heated, partisan, and accusatory, the reactions have matched them in fury.
So that is why I abandoned my news-mining and went outside for a long walk outside in a gorgeously sunlit, verdant spring afternoon.
It's my custom to pray aloud while I walk. This is a habit that I have developed over time as I've learned more about prayer (I have so much to share about that!) and that has always had a cleansing effect on the anxious tangle of thoughts in my mind. I wobbled my way across grass and asphalt, grateful for the belly band that supported my thirty-two week pregnancy, and just unloaded on God.
This is something I've learned about prayer: You start where you're at. You don't put yourself in an artificially prayerful mood and at last come to God with your life together. The whole point of praying is acknowledging that you don't have it together, that your dependency on your Father is absolute.
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The same need that drove you to respond to God's offered salvation is the exact same need that drives you to return to Him in prayer:
Come, ye weary, heavy-laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;If you tarry till you're better,You will never come at all.
So you come to God messy, broken, upset, anxious, and tired, with all the rawness of your thoughts plainly visible. You come to prayer in utter emotional nakedness.
