At Eternity's Gate

Thanks to the Apostle, Paul, Vincent Van Gogh, and the gifted Tim Mackie, I had a blog-worthy morning...the epiphany sort. And lucky for you, this is coming just before the progesterone side of my monthly cycle kicks in and rains on my parade of estrogen and optimism. If you're a woman trying to conceive, you know exactly what I'm talking about. (My apologies if that was TMI for some of you!)

Today's sermon was about the Holy Spirit's role in our suffering. It was titled "Pain-Filled Prayer." I don't always enjoy sermons on pain. Mostly because I cry easily these days...and that just becomes a neon sign above my head saying "something's wrong with this girl...she must be in pain." It makes me uncomfortable. I don't often enjoy sermons about the Holy Spirit, either. I feel a little bit guilty about that. But I think it's because I just can't get my mind around this part of the trinity. The Father created me. Jesus walked this earth and died for me. My simple human brain can understand that...just barely, but enough. The Spirit is something altogether different. Invisible. Body-less. Mysterious. My head knows that these three "persons" are all God and somehow one entity. That they are all equally important and intrinsically linked. Yet they are also separate, each with a divine purpose. I tend to focus so much of my faith and prayer life on God the Father and God the Son, that the work of God the Spirit all too often goes unrecognized.

In my last post, I mentioned how there are times when I'm so pissed and crushed in spirit that I cannot pray. In those times, I rely on my prayer warriors...friends and family members who know of our suffering and are willing to plead, question, and petition God on our behalf. I am forever thankful for these beautiful souls who willingly walk alongside us. But until today, I did not realize that mingled in amongst the prayers of our friends and family are the deep groans of the Spirit. When there is no order left and it feels as though God has turned His back, when we sit with our head in our hands overwhelmed with the exhaustion of doubt, when we are jaded and cynical, helpless and hopeless...the Spirit intercedes in sounds that only God can understand. It's as if the Spirit is acting as a direct link to God, channeling and translating the despair that leaves our words silent and our prayers empty.

Now, instead of feeling guilty for those heartbreaking times in which I have nothing left to say to God, I will sit in silence and know that the Spirit is working.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And He who searches our hearts, knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
-Romans 8:26-27