I have just had “one of those days”. The kind where I feel like it is Wednesday when it is only Monday; - the kind where I cannot move for brown envelopes from the tax man saying I owe something, then I do not owe anything, then I owe something, then they owe me something !
I also had the periodic – “what, why, where and who” argument with God… the kind that ends when I have a glass of wine and peer at facebook and ignore… my …. issues.
When I had stopped with my usual shout and swear match and got to the point where I found that I could be still, it felt somehow too late, like I had already spent my anger and all God was waiting for was for me to ‘quieten down dear’... I cannot shake my anger off so easily. If I spend it one night, it comes back to me the next.
I have got to be honest and say that I had no idea that I would be writing about this and sometimes, like many moments, feel like I am saying “God help me, I have a deadline. I have no idea what to say but I know that the things I am struggling with at the moment can be described like…” and then I am away.
I feel like God wants me to write about how he responds to our ‘shouts’ and he gave me this entertaining image of me shouting to him and then him kind of, just chilling out until I was ‘done’, then just kissing me. Or hugging me so close I can almost hear his heartbeat.
It is funny because I am listening to “housefires” at the moment and they are calling out that God is a “good, good father”. The wine is so powerful that I am starting to well up and I have not even read my Bible yet! We feel sometimes that we have such a need to remind God of us that we forget to remind ourselves of him.
What it means when we shout
As I was asking God to reveal to me what it means when we shout, He gave me this image of me, shouting into a cave. Every shout carried with it this heavy scent and perfume, with chemical significance. Parts of the cave slowly turned gold and silver and other parts turned to beautiful crystal and heavy/precious metal.
Then, just when we feel like we cannot shout or do anymore, the crystal and metal was lit up and became like a thousand lights in the darkness. I do not quite know what God is saying about that.
To me it feels like an unfinished symphony shown by God to me to let me know that he sees all that we shout about. That EVERY shout we utter has effect, resonance and significance in the heavenlies and in the spiritual realm.
That thing that you cry out to God a thousand times and never seem to get an answer on; that unmet romantic need, that unhealed illness, that unresolved sadness. GOD HEARS IT.
The rocks are turning golden as you bear the patient waiting that you absolutely hate but know that God wants from you. Patience is not only hard; it’s dull, right?
You see others change and grow and long to be happy but your soul feels sick with envy. You want to be happy for your friend who is engaged and you kid yourself that you are only jealous because they will have sex when you will not. BUT YOU ARE LYING.
And you shout at God again because you feel that you will be lonely. God sees you when you are in public spaces, emotionally raw. And you also feel, do you not that God strangely seems unmoved? Silent even.
But we know that God hears. We know that God conserves our tears in jars and that he wipes every tear and emotion. That he has cried out on all of our behalves, for all time.
He has cried out into the cave. He had to wait for three days for an answer. For a man who was also God, that wait must have felt like an eternity.
But the cave became luminescent
The cave of Jesus’ cries became luminescent. Not just for him but for us too. Your cave, your solitary space where you might paint the air blue/green/pink with anguish or fear or anger can in time become bright and light and free. Because Jesus has been there before.
He has visited and sung over the cave of your thoughts. His cry on your behalf enables you to cry out and to overcome the darkness; to sing your own song in your cave.
Rosie Robinson resides in Manchester where, in between feeding herself coffee and bagels she works for an international financial services organisation. She attends a lively church called Audacious, enjoys reading, running and watching films and slowly discovering life with Jesus.
Rosie Robinson's archive of articles can be viewed at
http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/rosie-robinson.html