10 things to do on days you feel helpless
This is for those days when you can feel the helplessness in your stomach, like a pouch of squirrels. This is for the days when your fists clench with the need to protect what has been entrusted to you by divine decree. This is for the days when the power to control what you ought to be able to control feels like it has been snatched away.
On those days:
Stop scrolling.
Stop fighting with the husband of the girl who was mean to you in Junior High on Facebook. Save your energy for the pockets of your world where you have real and divine influence.
Breathe as deeply as you can. Notice the catch between the inhale and exhale. Notice how your lungs know what to do without direction or instruction from your mind.
Let the tension in your shoulders dissolve as you breathe out.
Put your hand on your chest and notice that - for this second, for this moment, for this breath - you are safe. Speak that over the creature that you are. For this moment, we are safe.
Picture the Kingdom of God - like a seed - planted inside of you. Watch the presence of warmth and light and goodness and kindness and gentleness bloom within you. Watch it - not pushing out the anxiety or fear, but befriending them. Holding them. Moving toward them with respect and tenderness and compassion and grace.
Crawl inside that space inside you if you need to. Sit and watch the Kingdom of God grow around you.
When you are ready, let that Kingdom spill out through your breath into the world around you. Let the light and warmth and goodness and kindness and gentleness spill out of you like a wave, and wash over whatever you’re looking at, cascade with love over a nearby pet, or a beloved family member or a stranger in the line next to you at the grocery store.
Let love fill whatever corner you inhabit. Let the icy ground thaw wherever you step, and watch flowers spring up in your wake.
Believe - not that this is enough - but that this seed of love will multiply; will become more than enough. The corner that you carve out in this world, to feel and be like the Kingdom of God - it is not enough. But it will grow. Believe that the Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.
Goodness and light cannot be contained.
Plant wherever you are, with fierce faithfulness, and look expectantly for the Kingdom of God to grow and expand until it encompasses us all.
Thank you for this. I feel overwhelmed by this dark day and this has really helped me. Thank you.