Emotional Mudslide
For who is God except the Lord?
Who but our God is a solid rock? He makes me as surefooted as a deer,
enabling me to stand on mountain heights.
Your right hand supports me; your help[a] has made me great.
You have made a wide path for my feet to keep them from slipping.
Psalm 18:31, 33, 36 NLT
We were out for a typical tropical Saturday morning walk. Any chance my family can get to be in any kind of forest, being that we are living in a compound in the city, is welcomed. We had bought a year’s pass to our local ‘nature reserve.’ This, of course, is not nearly as wild as in the Pacific North West, but it will have to do. It was hot and humid. I debated about bringing the umbrellas but left them in the truck because, as my children joke, “Mom is always half-prepared.”
This turned out to be true, yet again.
Far from the parking lot, thick in the jungle-like underbrush with tired kids, we started to hear the thunder.
“Oh No,” my 4-year-old daughter wailed, “it’s going to rain!” (She hates rain).
We started hustling back towards the car as the lightning flashed. My husband threw our then 2-year-old daughter to me as he grabbed the 4-year-old and yelled at our two boys.
That’s when the rain started pouring. There was nowhere to hide, we had to run for it. But the ground had changed. It was slick and we were sliding all over the place. It took every core muscle that I didn’t have, not to crash my curly-headed daughter to the ground.
How often, lately, has my emotional footing been like that muddy forest floor?
I’ve accrued a fair share of disappointments this last year. We all have. The thing is, I process the big losses. It’s the simple ones that add up. Together, they have left me sliding around without anywhere firm for my feet to land: a lost friendship, a rejection letter for graduate school, a missed holiday, a bad perception of me, what feels like massive stagnancy in language learning. Every little disappointment not cast into the hands of God has turned my emotional stability into a mud-slide.
Why do I delay so long in bringing my griefs to God? My shame? My disappointments even with myself?
After months of unsure footing, God recently used Psalms 18 to remind me that He is my solid rock and it is He alone who makes me, “surefooted like the deer,” and keeps my feet from slipping.
As I finally cast my disappointments and painfully on Him, He did not reject me because of it or chastise me like a child. He did not move away from me because of my pain. But instead, comforted me deeply giving me the courage to keep going. His presence became my firm footing.
Where is your emotional footing today?
Where do you need a deeper level of empathy than the people in your life can provide? They were never meant to carry your emotional burdens fully. He can empathize with your heart in a way that no one else ever can. He is steady, underneath the full weight of your disappointments.