Put Down Your Hammer

“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Psalm 91:1-2 (NIV)

God has etched this verse on my heart over the last few years. And I just can’t let another week go by without sharing how it has truly changed my life.

While Ace was in the NICU four years ago, a lot of babies and their families came and went. Ace’s lengthy stay wasn’t so much the norm, so week after week new faces filled the rooms around us.

We easily recognized the face of a parent who just received heart wrenching news that would change their lives forever. We saw celebratory stroller rides with little ones who finally got to go home. We watched devastated families and crushed nurses crying as they mourned the loss of those who wouldn’t get to go home.

Very quickly I found myself either jealous or increasingly anxious over hearing how another baby was doing.

So, in effort to protect my own heart, I began to close off from what was going on around us as much as I could. I still had a daily front row seat to the NICU’s revolving door. But, I tried as best I could to block out other family’s successes and discouragements.

At one point during our stay, there was a woman in the room next door who had delivered twins very early in gestation. A few weeks into her stay, I walked onto the floor one morning to see all the signs that one of the twins had passed in the night.

It was a scene that had become too familiar and I reflexively was snapping into avoidance mode to protect my weary heart.

When I slipped into our room, Ace was still sleeping. So I found my usual spot on the plastic couch.

As I laid there, I felt God stirring in my heart.

Our conversation went something like this:

“Pray for her, Christi.”

How, God? She just lost her child.

I’m trying to get through the morning by pushing away the thought that that could be us next.

God, I don’t even want to go there right now.

It’s too painful to step into someone else’s grief.

My heart can’t take it.

I don’t even know what words to say.

“Pray for her, Christi.”

The thought of entering into someone else’s pain, even just by praying for them, in the midst of treading water through my own situation felt like too much for my heart to handle.

But with God’s persistence, I eventually did pray for her. No special words. Just the act of taking someone else’s pain to the Lord.

I prayed that she would be able to rest in Him. That He would hold her broken heart in His hands and begin to bring healing into the rawness of her pain.

And as I prayed, something happened inside of me.

God struck me that what I was asking Him to do for her, I was not even allowing Him to do in my own life.

Slowly, I realized how exhausted I was from trying to be the one holding and protecting my own heart through the rollercoaster of pain and healing.

I realized my desperation to rest in Him would only be satisfied if I allowed Him to be the protector of my heart instead of taking that role into my own hands.

You can’t completely rest and hold tightly onto something. It’s not physically possible.

When Ace was little, we’d go on car trips and he loved looking through books in his car seat. We’d always know when he had fallen fast asleep back there when we heard the thud of a book dropping to the floor.

Why?

Because you can’t hold onto something while you’re in complete rest.

“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Psalm 91:1-2 (NIV)

God was showing me that I was not allowing myself to rest fully in Him because I was choosing to take on holding my own heart and building my own fortress around myself instead of trusting Him as my fortress.

I’m not meant to be the fortress builder of my life, but to step into the shelter of my perfect, loving, trustworthy Father’s arms.

Praying for that woman who tragically lost one of her twins was where God opened my eyes to the faulty protection I was frantically building instead of resting in His trusted shelter.

What do your days look like lately?

Are you building or are you resting?

Has all your energy been going into building your own fortress of protection around your heart?

I pray God etches these words of Psalm 91 onto your heart and you begin to put down your hammer, walk into your Fortress and Refuge, and finally find rest.

In this next series of posts, I hope you will join me as we peer into what it really looks like to dwell in the shelter of our Lord and trust Him to be the Protector and Guide on our paths coming through painful times.

From one of His children to another,

Christi