Give It Up

la·ment. noun. a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.

This morning when I woke up, our podcast still had 11% more to upload (after failing once and having to restart in the middle of the night). What's up with that YouTube? Why is it taking hours upon hours to upload these days, get it together.

I digress, then I remembered it was Breonna Taylor's birthday and immediately got online preparing to post something in her honor; that also took hours. I was on the computer, I was answering text messages and emails, looking at social media and don't forget the three shopping tabs open - doing way too much at one time. Then around 2pm I realized that I felt very overwhelmed and heavy and all of a sudden it dawned on me, I hadn't prayed for worshipped or spent any time with God today. If that's not the first thing I do in the morning my day just goes to boo boo. Whew. I felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders and 75 things on my to do list - not knowing which one to start first.

Honestly, my prayer life lately has been trash because I just don't know what to say. I can pray for other people, I fasted and prayed for someone last week that I've never met, I'll drop what I'm doing to respond to a prayer request for anyone else. But when I sit down to pray for myself lately I've just been blank. When I try to read the word it just goes over my head. I have not been able to focus because well...trauma. But how do I get through trauma unless I lay it at the feet of the One who can take it.

I was sitting here texting two of my sisters and I was like "I need to worship" so I stopped what I was doing and went to YouTube to see what I should listen to. A few different songs were on my homepage and I clicked on "Most Beautiful" and as it played I sang (thank God Jesus hears in autotune - Pastor Kelvin) and I heard the word "lament" in my spirit over and over and over again. Then God told me to turn my ringer off, get up and walk around the house and pray. Here's me: but God you know I haven't known what to say lately. God: just get up and do what I said, daughter.

I stood up, paced around, opened the balcony doors, sang loud (sorry neighbors) and all of a sudden the words just began to fly out of my mouth and I prayed and I cried - I lamented before God and spilled out everything that has been inside all week. It was like rivers of flowing water. Out of my eyeballs but also out of my heart, my soul and my spirit. I laid everything that has been bothering me at God's feet this afternoon and I felt so much better.

So, my dear brothers and sisters, if you've felt stuck, just lament before our Heavenly Father. Sit in His presence and release whatever is inside - even if you can't get your words together. When we don't know what to say, and we lean into God, the Holy Spirit takes over and our soul speaks when we can't find the words. Cry, scream, it doesn't matter, God can take it and He wants to take it. He doesn't want us walking around with heavy burdens that we aren't supposed to be carrying. So stop holding onto to things that He's told you to put down. Stop gripping things tighter that He's trying to take from your hands.

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