This Impossible Weight

Life can be heavy, an impossible weight.

Worsened by dwelling upon yesterday.

If I shut my eyes to ignore all the pain,

It rages again the moment I wake.

I'm calling, I'm begging, I'm grasping to find

Some kind of reprieve for this restless mind.

No pill, destination, or companion of mine

Will be able to soothe what thrashes inside.

The only solution, the only escape

Is to run to the Lord and tell Him all things.

To sit with Him, stay with Him, breathe in His grace

And trust that He sees me and covers my shame.

-Scarlett Elise

I wrote this poem yesterday, as I reflected on the dull anguish that I was feeling at the end of the day. I find myself feeling this way pretty often. When there's no obvious reason for grief or suffering, there's still this dull ache. I guess that's the price of living in a sinful world with a sinful heart - there will always be pain on this side of Heaven. Maybe it's just a longing for things to be made right, for justice to prevail, and for suffering to cease across the world. And what a wonderful hope we believers have in knowing that those longings will be satisfied one day as we get to live with our Savior Jesus in Heaven!

But in the meantime, here on earth, it seems that the only way to cope with our world is to rest in the Lord. Tell Him your worries, fears, frustrations, and sins. I told Him yesterday how angry I was feeling at someone who hurt me, and I was surprised to be met with understanding and comfort. The Lord can soften the hardest of hearts, redeem the irredeemable, and break down the most fortified walls. His kindness is incredible, and we doubt it so often, which often stops us from obeying the command to cast all our anxieties on Him, for He cares for us deeply! (1 Peter 5:7)

All that being said, if you also find yourself sitting down at the end of the day and feeling this restless ache, you're not alone. I'll bet you're a dreamer who imagines what the world could be, what it should be, and I'm grateful for you. No one has your mind. Your gifts. Your soul or insights. You are uniquely crafted by the Creator of all things. It's a heavy task to be a hopeful dreamer in this world and to search for the beauty to be found amidst the darkness, but it's also a fantastic and necessary task. The Father has made you a dreamer, and sometimes that means we overthink and worry and get overwhelmed by the deluge of possibilities and emotions welling up inside.

If you get a chance, check out this post by Anthony Gurrola, a fantastic Christian artist I follow on Instagram. I have this post as a screensaver on my phone, because I relate to it so much, and I think it's a wonderful reminder. What a beautiful picture we see here - Jesus down on His knee at our level, sitting with us as we spiral in negative thoughts and despair, and then He makes something lovely out of it all. He is the only one who can make our anxiety into God-glorifying dreams. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10).

Your mind is not broken. Tell Him every thought, messy and awful and lovely and hopeful alike. Take every thought captive and hand them to Him. And watch Him turn those thoughts into something beautiful.

Keep dreaming, dreamer!

With love,

Scarlett