That Thing You Carry


Dear Friends,

You know that thing you carry in your heart, tucked just below the surface?

Where you go about your normal day—making coffee, driving to work, cleaning up the messes of your kids—but you know if someone asks you just the right question at just the right time you might crack open and this thing would spill straight out?

That thing.

Maybe it’s a prayer for the healing of a family member, or for a strained relationship. Maybe it’s prayer for your marriage or a wayward child.

I call it a prayer, but it’s more like prayer mixed with a thousand pounds of earnest hope and God this has to happen and how am I gonna make it through this.

Prayer may evoke an image of incense slowly rising, but this thing is more like a violent tidal wave held up in your chest.

Yes, that thing.

You’ve said words and words and words to God about this thing so many times, sometimes it can feel like you’ve drained all the language straight out. You’re left with little more than an exhale.

I don’t have an answer for you about that prayer you carry. It would be wrong for me to even try. That thing is holy. But I will say this: your exhale is enough.

Sometimes I do this: I turn my mind to the Lord right in the middle of it all, and I just let the air empty from my lungs.

God, You know. That’s it. That’s all I got left. And it’s a prayer that reaches straight up to the heavens and takes hold of His heart.

Romans 8:26 says that “the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered.” Another translation calls this, “wordless sighs”.

You don’t need a certain word count to be considered by God. You don’t need a well-packaged presentation of your petitions.

Take comfort today in this, that He is the One who searches the heart and mind. He knows us to the uttermost. He knows all the hopes and fears and longing that make up our sighing.

And that sighing? It’s enough.

–Anna

Anna Blanc

I am a singer, songwriter, wife, mother, Jesus follower. I send out a 2-minute read every Tuesday about Jesus and life in God.

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