Dear friend,
Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am faint. LORD, heal me, for my bones are troubled. My soul is also in great anguish. But you, LORD—how long?
I sat in a waiting room three years ago for a biopsy result and read the same paragraph of a magazine eleven times without absorbing one word of it. My hands were cold the whole time even though the room wasn't. I remember thinking, so this is what fear does to a body, it just makes it cold. I'm not telling you that because it fixes anything about what you're carrying right now. It doesn't. I'm telling you because I don't want you to feel strange for how much room this is taking up in you.
Someone told me back then to stay positive and I wanted to throw the magazine at her. You don't need positive. You need to be able to say the actual sentence, this is scary, and have someone not flinch.
Psalm 6 has a line about bones being troubled. Not just fear, bones. Whoever wrote that knew the body keeps its own record separate from the brain's. I keep thinking about how a health issue lodges in exactly that place, under the words.
What does your body feel like it's holding right now that words haven't caught up to yet?
A prayer
God, her body is carrying something heavy and her words haven't caught up to it yet. Steady her hands, steady the waiting, and be near in the parts she can't explain. Amen.