He Knows

 

I had just finished praying for multiple friends and loved ones who are facing struggles.  The biggest kinds: death, grief, depression, marriage issues, faith and testimony questions, identity and health concerns and more.

I was feeling the emotional load of sharing that burden  and particularly magnifying some of my own trials.  

Hard.  That's the word I was hanging on to tightly as I headed to work.  

As I drove, I had a specific memory come back to me.

My son was 3 years old and had been jumping on his bed when he slipped and gashed his head open.  We were now at the ER attempting to stitch the wound.  

And he wanted no part of it.  

To say he was scared and anxious about needles is the understatement of the year.  

Even getting a sliver out was a three-alarm event for this kid.

He took screaming and kicking to an astronomical level.  

So the doctor and nurse had to use a sheet and wrap his flailing arms to his sides like a tight swaddled burrito.  

He was hysterically screaming for me. "Mommy, please!! Help Mommy, help! Mommy!"

They were the only words he could get out.

I knew the doctors were helping him.  

I knew he would be fine in a few minutes. 

But tears ran down my cheeks as I stayed nearby and stroked his cheek.  

I felt his fear and panic and longing for the safety of my arms.  

But he needed to finish the procedure so he could heal and learn and grow.  

And so at that moment I leaned over and simply said, "I know."  And I was with him.

As that memory came flooding back in detail, I felt those words wash over me from Heaven.

"I Know."

He knows.  All the pain, sorrow, frustration, fear, anger, loss, - all of it.  

So when my prayers are not able to be more than "Please, Father!  Help!"  That's enough.  

When our emotions and situations have us wrapped up as tightly as a sheet burrito so we struggle to even move and the smallest things feel like the impossible, He knows.

And while it may not change the urgency and overwhelming aspects of our situation at the moment, it can bring great peace by simply grasping that pure truth.

He lives.  And He knows.