A Meditation for Those who Feel Lost in the Darkest Night of their Soul
By: Kimberly Dimick
We all hope at the darkest moments of our life that our faith would shine or this strength would come so we could smack some demons around.
I have found that our faith shines AFTER we get to the other side. We our dumbfounded by everything God did to step in and rescue us and save us from what should have taken us out.
God will act on our behalf when we feel we can not think straight or act on our own behalf at all.
We are left to His mercies toward us and NOTHING else. We have nothing to offer only crying out and beating our chest. Suddenly, Jesus speaks right in the middle of our mortification, desperation and humiliation…… "Bring my daughter to ME!!"
This is how we find REST. When we give up so utterly and ask nothing but to lay down. When we fall down in a heap, we land in green pastures by some miracle. He MAKES me to lie down.
He is magnifying Himself over you. His heart is swelled up with compassion for you, a fiery passion that moves God to act.
It is our human frailty when trauma overwhelms us to go numb and shut down. Yet, there is a purpose in shutting down. God takes over and proves that He is WHO He says He is.
There is no room left for anything you can possibly do anymore sweet daughter of God. It is ALL God.
At these times, it is normal to first respond with fear. We think our ears are dull because of some lack on our part but this is not true. We get scared because we cannot hear anything at all that makes sense. The sounds are muffled and voices garbled so much we cannot discern what is what. The noise and voices in our head confuse us to the point, they neither dissuade or convince us of anything. We strain to understand but the more intently we try to listen the less we hear.
This is because your head is buried in God's chest. He has pulled you in, holding you so close to Himself, that any sounds that startle you are drowned out by His heartbeat. As He holds you, tighter and tighter…..slowly,….slowly,………you calm down….nothing else matters.
He is enlarged above everything and everyone and it is no concern of yours as you can only hear your Papa's beating heart of desire and love for you.
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Shortly after publishing this I opened my email and read this!
BY MADISYN TAYLOR
It is a natural part of being that our lives sometimes contract before expanding.
Sometimes our lives contract before they expand. We may be working hard on ourselves spiritually, doing good in the world, following our dreams, and wondering why we are still facing constrictions of all kinds–financial, emotional, physical. Perhaps we even feel as if we've lost our spirituality and are stuck in a dark room with no windows. We may be confused and discouraged by what appears to be a lack of progress. But sometimes this is the way things work. Like a caterpillar that confines itself to a tiny cocoon before it grows wings and flies, we are experiencing the darkness before the dawn.
When things feel tight, it's easy to panic or want to act in some way to ease the feeling of constriction. We might also spin our wheels mentally, trying to understand why things are the way they are. However, there is nothing we need to do at this time other than to be patient and persevering. We can cling to the awareness that we are processing the shift from one stage to another, and the more we surrender to the experience, the more quickly we will move through the tightness into the opening on the other side. Just like a baby making its way down the birth canal, we may feel squeezed and pushed and very uncomfortable, but if we remember that we are on our way to being born into a new reality, we will find the strength to carry on.
Even as we endure the contractions, we can find peace within ourselves if we remember to trust the universe. We can look to the natural world for inspiration as we see that all beings surrender to the process of being born. In that surrender, and in the center of our own hearts, is a willingness to trust in the unknown as we make our way through the opening.