Intercede 

Sometimes life is the worst. Terrible things happen. Then they keep happening. Accidents take lives. We betray each other. We struggle figuring out the best way to communicate with each other. We hurt each other when we don’t mean to or want to.

Sometimes I have a really hard time figuring out what to do. What I am finding is I need space to be angry. I need space to be heartbroken, to feel hopeless. I need space to be disappointed in ways we are treating each other and behaviors I see (and exhibit). (To be clear, I also need space to be excited and to celebrate! We need lots of spaces!) Only when I allow myself to enter into these difficult spaces do I see a glimmer of hope or find a foothold. 

We need strategies and tools that help us face the inevitable hardships life brings. A client in a grief coaching session the other day repeated several times that it was hard to feel hopeful during this season of life. After verifying this space wasn’t one with suicidal thoughts or tendencies (which is necessary to cover, and requires specific, calculated intervention), I was aware of how difficult it was to “let” this person feel so bad. It felt counterintuitive. It didn’t match the way our culture says to respond in situations like these. But as my grief teacher (https://coachingatendoflife.com/) always says: In order to support someone and help them feel better, first we have to let them feel worse. 

When you encounter those times in your life when you struggle figuring out how to be angry, sad, scared, and all those feelings and hard emotions with which we have been created, what does it look like for you to seek out a space where you can “be” and “feel” fully? When are times in your life you can look back on where you felt like you were in a hole? How were you able to begin climbing out? Or have you been able to figure out a way yet?

When I wrote my book (https://www.coachduprey.com/the-yellow-sports-bra) I essentially got to study myself and my psyche while growing up; it was like doing a case study on myself. Fascinating. I noticed how poetry was a consistent tool I used to cope with different situations I faced. Looking back on journals from when I was a teenager and young adult, I found poems scribbled down on many pages. Poems I wrote exploring how I felt about special people in my life, how I felt when those people encouraged me, when they let me down and hurt me, or when I let them down and hurt them. Somewhere along the line I let that practice slip. I am trying to again be more intentional about using this tool when I need a healthy outlet for sucky (that’s the best word I have for it) emotions. 

I am going to share a recent lament of mine. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54MN-AxHsuM). (Disclaimer: writing is a gift of mine. As far as singing– I can carry a tune, but it’s not my forte. Ha, pun.) As you read it, I encourage you to reflect on strategies and tools you have or need to help you deal with the “sucky” stuff. And remember, when you think you are alone in how you are feeling or confused or crazy, that is normal! 

INTERCEDE

Verse 1:

When will you wipe

These tears from my eyes

I am battered, I’m beat

I look toward the skies

Try to trust in your word

But I realize

I’m too fragile, too frightened, too fraught

Don’t know how to pray like I ought  

Verse 2: 

Can’t find the words

I sigh and I groan

You say You are here

But I feel so alone

I prayed for your protection

How could you condone

This heartbreak, this horror, this hell

My soul, it is weary, not well

Chorus:

Intercede, intercede

Intercede, whoa-oh

Spirit, intercede

Verse 3:

Where now from here

Hard to eat sleep or breathe

Nothing makes sense

Not sure what to believe

This world is too much

I need a reprieve

My soul, it is weary not well

Chorus:

Intercede, intercede

Intercede, whoa-oh

Spirit, intercede

Intercede, whoa-oh

Spirit, intercede