When You Feel Thin With Nothing Else To Give

Have you ever felt thin? I’m not talking about physically thin or a tummy-devoid-of-food thin. I’m speaking of being stretched so tightly from one thing to the other that you are certain that you will tear soon. That there is no more wiggle room, just tight thinness.

I am a hollow person walking. Skin on bones hiding the empty.

And then, there is the world with its aches and pains, crying out for humanity to rise up to care for one another: wiping tears, cleaning scraped knees, drawing people to hope, offering haven and purpose to the refugee, lifting up the broken hearted, wailing with those who mourn, scraping genuine community together, truly seeing other human beings.

As voices rise up to siren the horror of the refugee crisis, I wonder if there is a God. I grew up in church, and I’ve talked and walked the Christian life. But overwhelmed by the magnitude of pain, I wonder.

I feel like I’m barely holding it together already, and now this. I’m living right outside of Vienna. Not far from me is a refugee camp brimming full with people who have fled their country. Some are true refugees; some are only taking advantage of the times, having been rejected entry to other countries due to criminal records so they’re trying again.

I want to care. I want to care for each of those people whom I share humanity and breath with.

But how do you care when you feel that you have only empty hands, a hollow heart, and vacant eyes too? When your schedule is packed full already? When you, yourself, are in survival mode?

I don’t know. Can you tell me?

Where is God in all of this?

And yet, I must believe there is a God, a caring one. I don’t think I could stay in a world where there wasn’t some bigger force who cared for humanity. I’d rather die believing that there is a God who sent his holy, perfect son to die for these mean, selfish generations of human beings because of His Love for us than to live in a world where there is no God or a God who makes relationship with him impossible.

To the God of Renewed Thickness,

Do you see what’s happening? Do you see how evil plays, bulldozing lives for their cause-sake?

There is tearing here. Thinness ripping wide open. But you promise that there is a time for everything. When is the time of your renewal?

Please don’t turn away from us as we flounder in the rip tide of darkness, dragging us all out to drown. Will you come and lift us from the current? Or do we go with the flow until the rip dies? Will you allow us to be dragged that far?

I want peace, but there is only discomfort. Don’t leave us to ourselves for that is surely hell.

Please lift us from this thinness.

 

Want more soulful wailing for help? Keep reading at Psalm 69.