Higher Than Me

I was speaking to some of the parents at my son’s home schooling group a few days ago and the words that one of the mums shared resonated with me.

She spoke about how unmotivated she feels right now. She said she was making lunch the other day and realised she had run out of cucumbers. The grocery store was just a few blocks away. It would have taken five minutes to pop out and buy cucumbers. But, however much she willed herself, she just couldn’t summon up the energy to go. So, she made a cabbage salad for lunch instead.

This story made me realise just how frozen so many of us in Israel are feeling at the moment.

I noticed it a few weeks ago when terrible fires broke out in the centre of the country. With the hot weather and strong winds, there was a real danger that the flames could spread to our region in the Carmel. I was surprised to find that I felt nothing at all. It was like all my adrenaline had already been spent and I had no shock or fear left inside me.

A couple of days after the fires, we had two sirens in our area – the first ones since the ceasefire with Hezbollah in November. This time the sirens were set off by Houthi rockets from Yemen. When the alarms sounded – the first at 5.30 AM and the second at lunchtime – I felt a sense of dread shooting through my body that left me feeling shaky and disorientated. Later that evening, I felt unusually tired. The next day, I had no energy to do anything at all.

This isn’t the first time in my life that I’ve experienced an emotional freeze. I know that it will pass as I give myself the time and space I need to process my feelings, and as I draw comfort and strength from God, family and friends.

But, even though, in my head I understand what’s happening, and I know that it won’t last forever, it is still a scary feeling.

One of the other mums in the home schooling group the other day was feeling guilty that she couldn’t motivate herself to teach her daughter. She felt ashamed for allowing this girl to spend so much time in front of a screen.

I think the guilt feelings are the worst part of an emotional freeze. When we can’t find within ourselves the energy or motivation to carry out basic functions in our lives, it can easily be misinterpreted both by ourselves and others as laziness, unwillingness or a stubborn refusal to carry out our responsibilities.

When I feel emotionally overwhelmed, it’s always the housework that suffers. I have no energy to put away the laundry, sweep the floors, or keep on top of the piles of clutter that always seem to accumulate. And then I berate myself for being so lazy.

But I’m not lazy and I have no reason to feel ashamed. None of us do. We are all doing the very best we can in circumstances that are far from normal.

Last night, I woke up in the early hours feeling heavy. Rather than tossing and turning in bed, I came through into the living room, made myself a cup of tea, and asked God to speak into my darkness.

Immediately, the words of Hosea came to mind:

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her” – Hosea 2:14

This emotional freeze is not a sickness. Nor is it a shameful moral failure. Within this numb and foggy state where I have no energy to move forward, no drive pushing me outwards and onwards – in the very midst of this formless and empty void, the Spirit of God is hovering over the waters.

When I stop being afraid and stop trying to fight, I can discern the quiet whisper of God wooing me into the wilderness so that he can speak comfort into my soul. I am not alone in this desert place. God is holding my hand. He has led me into a state of quietness and stillness, far away from the battle, where he can tend to my wounds and watch over me as I sleep.

When this desert season has passed, the energy and colour will return to my life. I will re-engage with the world around me with renewed vision, strength and vitality. But just for now, just for these next few days – maybe weeks – I feel God saying that the cucumbers can wait. I don’t need to go shopping today. It’s better that I make time to rest in his arms. And cabbage salad is perfectly OK for lunch.