Mourning Spaces
Mourning Spaces
Watercolors and old wounds
by Jessica Lawson
A lightbulb went off in me when I saw an enneagram-inspired Instagram post talking about how each number could have better quiet times with God.
For the myriad of numbers I’m comprised of I remembered I love to create. But not just to create. I create to connect. Whether it’s with others, with the verse I’m meditating on, feelings I’ve been shoving down, or feelings overtaking reason.
I was in the middle of one of those LONG winded friend phone calls. The kind of calls where you find yourself as a sounding board so you start doing the dishes or finish up dinner or start it. I ended up finding myself with an old set of watercolors and some heavy parchment. Infinite possibilities.
This friend is an old ministry partner. This friend is a wise friend. I started writing what they said. The paints helped me process the weight of their words.
Then out of nowhere, the subject turned to talk about the old ministry I had cared for, I nursed back to health from brokenness, I advocated for, I sacrificed for, I gave up so much for.
I do know what happened, but I exploded with tears.
Maybe this was my 8-month scheduled crying appointment over old wounds?
Maybe it’s this? Maybe it’s that?
I found myself silently sobbing as I heard about how WELL my old ministry was doing. I don’t think I was envious or resentful. I think the tears came cause I was mourning that I wasn’t apart of it anymore. Obviously God is the beginning middle and end of it all, but He chose to use me to build the “ark”, to lead those people out of their “Egypt”. But I never got to see the flooding stop. I never got to see the other side of the Red Sea.
I wanted to push the feelings back down. Bury them. Move on. But my body has been having this annoying tendency of communicating with me ... From my silent sobs, I got a muscle cramp. It lasted SO long. Not longer than that friend on the phone. I tried stretching, ignoring, and then repeat.
I finally prayed a half-hearted, “Why is this still hurting?” prayer.
And the Spirit spoke so gently, “Because you haven’t mourned.”
I was spiritually shook.
I’m still hurting over half a year later because I haven’t mourned.
Processing this information, I consulted my watercolors. Then I shifted to externally processing with my sweet husband. Then I went into a room alone like I was on social airplane mode. There, alone, I laid out the feelings. I laid out the hurts. I laced everything with grace to feel the real feels but also the grace of not staying there. This scab needed to heal and I knew such healing will leave a scar.
Frankly, scars used to scare me. Now I see that they’re simply proof of what we’ve been healed from.
Frankly, scars used to scare me. Now I see that they’re simply proof of what we’ve been healed from.
I want to encourage you Kindred, to make space to mourn. There are so many external causes today to mourn — COVID deaths, divisive politics, black lives not mattering, poverty, hunger, etc.
And we need to give space to those to feel, to process, to cry, to pray, to share, and then to lay those burdens at Jesus’s feet.
When we carry too many burdens we are sheep trying to be the Shepherd.
There was a sheep who got lost from his Shepherd for 6 years. Hiding in caves, living alone. The sheep didn’t have anyone to shorn its coat. When the sheep was found it took 30 minutes for its extra weighted coat to be shaved. This sheep was carrying 6 times its weight around. After a purposed meeting with the Shepherd, the sheep was free from that burden.
The amount of fleece cut off weighed 60 pounds.
All it took was a meeting with the Shepherd to lighten the sheep’s burden.
Make a space to meet with your Shepherd.
Make a flexible discipline, a daily rhythm to spend time with Him.
Let’s be the sheep who are burden-free because we’ve let the Shepherd take them off our backs.
Matthew 11:28-30
Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.