This story is dedicated to my husband and my son- for their courage and who have encouraged this post ….that it may provide someone else hope!!
There is a small space in my closet with doors that shut and at 4’11” I barely fit. It’s just enough room for a pillow and a battery operated candle. I first heard of a “prayer room” from a social worker named Sarah–a wonderful woman full of faith! I learned more by listening to Pastor Phillip Anthony Mitchell and have heard echoes of it in my son’s music as well.
So now I go there, it’s where I “ugly cry”. I don’t go often enough, there is no religious performance. Honestly…..it is where I bring my helplessness. I bring things I can’t fix. I go occasionally when things feel heavy from containing emotions after therapy, I pray for people, grieve over things that hurt.
I am often convicted of the “crap” in my own heart that needs attention. And then…. I find myself overwhelmed with gratitude. Nothing has changed, but something in me has. Matthew 11:28 says...”Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Other times, my heavy heart makes its way to a dirt road where I listen to sermons and sometimes to my son’s music. And I know you can identify because everyone’s heart aches at times over something. The 4 mile walks have become a place where I can be “still.”
Sometimes we need to give our shoulders a rest and for me that happens mostly in solitude- the closet floor, a dirt road and thankfully at times, in my husband’s arms (my husband thought I should include an actual “picture of his arms” here 😂…I said no).
The truth is, I have been talking to God long before I had language for faith. I can’t remember a time when I did not know God. I didn’t grow up in a home where faith was present, however, at age 8 when anger in my home escalated to violence, I made bargains with God in the backyard. It’s easy to see- that “carrying things” began early and like many kids raised around chaos, I began confusing what I could carry with what was mine to carry.
I’m fully aware there are places inside me that have been carrying a lot recently. As a mother- when you see your child struggle with things that pain them- it pains us. This is not a story of how “well” I have carried. It is a story of where I have learned to LAY DOWN the things I’m carrying!
The dirt road has become one of those places. Walking, praying with a hand raised toward the sky with no audience to impress, giving praise, surrendering things for the 100th time and being overcome with gratitude for all Christ has done in my life . One recent hot morning -through my literal “dirt-faced tears,” I saw shade ahead of me and it stopped me dead in my tracks - I felt deep gratitude and just thanked Him for the shade.
It is a blessing to be able to ache and feel grateful at the same time. Some mornings I cry on that dirt road and, only an hour later, sit across from someone else’s suffering and become the therapist again–present, attentive, emotionally regulated. The human heart is capable of pretty amazing things!!
Just like the closet- the dirt road is worship and release. My son’s music makes me think about my own faith. Occasionally he writes something that hits so deep. And because he is my son-pieces of it belong to my story too … and maybe that part can be misunderstood. The road is where my understanding changes and I’m able to process things that feel heavy.
Releasing emotions on those walks matter, because of what happens afterwards. Sometimes I’m carrying enormous emotion and then within hours it’s my job to sit across from my patients engaged and empathetic. Discharging necessary energy …makes room for that ;).
HERE IS THE CONFLICT…..what happens when God gives someone a tender heart toward suffering and then asks her to encounter suffering she cannot fix? That kind of love has weight and it's unbelievably hard.
My son recently wrote a song about breaking “generational patterns” and one verse said “my momma did it.” As I reflected on that more and more I started thinking….. “did I” …..“how can that be true” because …. my son has wounds.
My mother was surviving in the midst of domestic violence. She loved me fiercely and I was affected. I fiercely love my son– and he was affected. God’s grace allows me to tell the truth about our humanity. I know I was overprotective, and carried too much, I was trying to protect my son and break patterns that began long before either of us.
This season of being a mother has taken something I already knew and made it very personal. I understand from the “inside” a loving and devoted parent can still have a child who fights battles… My son’s music makes parts of his struggles visible. And because some of his journey has been expressed publicly through his music, I have had to release the illusion that being knowledgeable should somehow produce a family untouched by pain. It can’t help but humble a person.
Generational wounds affect people deeply. I think breaking patterns means the struggle is no longer hidden and kept a secret- it’s brought up “out of the darkness” -however- it may not prevent pain from seeping in. I have hope that our children’s struggles are not evidence that we failed to break patterns.
Anger itself is human, but when it becomes frequent without connection, disproportionate—and when pride and defensiveness prevent accountability and repair—it creates relational wounds between a father and son. God can redeem what anger and rejection once harmed.
I gave a training to CIT staff on the “effects of living with someone in law enforcement” it was called the Battlefield of the Mind. There is fall out from it no doubt!
As I reflected, some of the patterns had been broken. My son is deeply loved. I spent a great deal of quality time with him, laughed, offered grace and listened. He was able to communicate his feelings young. I worked to protect him in ways I had not been protected. He was given words for things I once had to survive in silence. I tried to apologize to him when I reacted poorly and mutual respect grew easily between us. I raised a young man who can say “I’m sorry” - and that is important for repair and healing in any relationship.
Motherhood awakened that childhood instinct in me–the belief that enough love, vigilance, prayer and protection could spare him certain kinds of pain.
What matters…..is what God can do when hearts soften–how it exposes what pride once concealed, brought humility where defensiveness lived and restored relationships. Showing us that what is passed down from generation to generation does not have to keep being passed on.
I prayed for many years for a heart to soften and surrender. His restoration did not come quickly -however- it did come. I believe God used my son’s faith and testimony to reach my husband in the guarded areas of his heart.
Last fall, my 20 y.o son baptized his father in a hotel pool in Branson— a relationship that once carried wounds- is the very place Christ started to redeem. That is a story of hope, faithfulness and forgiveness!
This season has humbled me professionally too. I have spent more than 25 yrs in the mental health field. I sit alongside suffering and yet all my education, experience, insight, love, devotion, intention and prayer could not guarantee that my own child would never have wounds.
Therapists don’t just bring their education and clinical judgment, we also bring our own understanding of suffering. That has helped me recognize and meet others in theirs . Wisdom does not make any of us immune to suffering.
In 2022- I posted a poem that I resonate deeply with “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well, can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity” Pema Chodron.
I’ve spent much of my life deeply aware of other people’s emotional states. Some of that is temperament, professional training and some belong to the little girl who learned how to regulate others’ emotions early. The gift in that - is a heart that is wired towards tenderness.
I have greater compassion for the mother carrying fear and grief, for the man carrying anger and pride, for the child carrying wounds, and the difficult truth- that love and hurt can exist in the same home and often do.
Somewhere in the middle of carrying heavy things, God continues to bless. Over time God has been knitting a relationship between my daughter-n-law and I that is special in its own right. There have been shared moments and laughter. I don’t want our relationship to carry expectations or pressure. When my hands finally “loosened” their grip lol, I could see what God was adding to our lives.
For me, surrendering is carrying tremendously while knowing I’m not God. A young girl bargaining with God, the woman learning to meet Him on the floor of a closet, and the mother doing the very best she can to surrender on the dirt road- despite the instinct to carry.
Knowing there are places I can go to discharge emotions, make sense of things, reflect, grieve regrets and celebrate how Christ redeems… allows me to return as the therapist who will soon sit down and hold someone else’s pain. It’s in these places that healing and deep gratitude have been found. I find myself thanking God for what He has already done. A place where helplessness is not the same as hopelessness.
For the non-believer that comes across this post.. I hope at the very least… you will understand the importance of laying down heavy things that you carry also
The following are a few verses about shade and the symbolism of God’s protection: Psalm 121:5, Isaiah 25:4, Song of Solomon 2:3, Psalm 91:1.