For every love story there’s a sad story.

When God speaks into my life, when I’m receptive enough to notice His Presence is there, what He has to say is never random.  Often, there’s an underlying original story, the recurrent theme happens to be how I’ve been relationally harmed in some way in the past by those who had access to nurture me well but didn’t (for whatever reason). When God’s about to show up to heal, there’s a buildup that serves to ultimately orient me toward Him, turning my face away from whatever else it might be besides union with God that has my attention; this turning toward manifests in ways that I often don’t immediately  realize are from Him.

Prior to me awakening to His increase of now presence in my life, there’s an arousal or enlivening of deeply anesthetized but not dead feelings and emotions in my body, stored in deep places that my so-called rational, thinking (conscious?) mind can’t access. When they come up, my customary response is to press a mental understanding, which I’ve been led to believe is superior to an embodied knowing. (God sets us up with both mental and physical knowledge, but culturally in the modern West, an embodied knowing, i.e. through the physical senses, is considered inferior to an intellectual understanding. It’s not always been viewed this way and not every culture today accepts the idea that intellect is superior to a sensory intelligence).

My initial reaction to whatever my body not my mind is saying to me is to assume what I’m feeling is all about what’s happening now, not unlike what happens in PTSD where a trigger event in the present takes one back to action that happened in the past, but with no discernable timetable – it all appears to be happening now. So, when my body is talking past tense, I still look for meaning in my present experiences to explain what I’m feeling. This can keep me stuck in the timeless past traumatic moments unless I shift my focus. This feeling is about the past, not what’s happening right now. To get myself out of thinking mode and into feeling mode, I have learned to lean into the feelings, by asking God to soothe me, instead of giving me answers that my mind wants. I don’t need answers when I know He is here with me now.

Being soothed by God is different than being numbed. Numbed, I know. Numbed is how I’ve lived most of my life. Numbed is the best that the gods of the world can offer. But the thing about numbing is that it wears off and a real side effect is the return of the original pain plus an additional feeling of aloneness that wasn’t there at first. And so, the cycle of numbing continues.

But God doesn’t hand out a numbing agent, He provides balm, a soothing in the midst of the pain. I’d like to say it’s hard to explain if you haven’t experienced it, but in reality, I think once you have experienced God’s presence in this way, it’s even harder to explain; it defies words, as do all of our encounters with the Infinite Love. It’s more like the pain is still there, but it doesn’t matter anymore, when God soothes. And when I say, past harm doesn’t matter anymore, let me unpack that. It’s not so much that the harm doesn’t matter, but that my identity as ‘one who was harmed’ is replaced with an identity as ‘one who God sees and cares for.’ The past identity as a victim, a recipient of harm doesn’t matter. It’s no longer important. It no longer ‘fits.’ I am my Father’s child, and He is with me. My identity isn’t based on the harm done to me, rather, now, it's infinite union with God that is the sole basis for my security and identity.  (Yes, these moments are as fleeting as they are precious. They'll come and leave again and again).

Past harm doesn’t matter anymore when God soothes. Because God doesn’t soothe from a distance. This is the mystery and unfathomable beauty of the Incarnation. It’s the very proximity of God in Yeshua that makes the pain not matter. It’s so well demonstrated by the biblical accounts of Yeshua touching the lepers, who, by their very disease were considered the ‘untouchables’! The ones for who touch has been denied them are healed by Yeshua's’ touch. Touch, the physical proximity of God with us, where touch equals proximity and where proximity equals an elevation of status conferred by the toucher - this is where past harm doesn’t matter anymore.

Scripture has given us the analogy of “Yeshua is living water” with those intentionally chosen words meant to convey to the original, ancient audience an embodied knowing of what spiritual life with God is like. We’re able to better understand intangible, spiritual truths through the feelings and emotions that come up in our bodies, centered around these words, related to actual tangible experiences. If you know thirst, and you know quenching of thirst, your body knows 'Yeshua is living water'. How is Yeshua/Jesus like Living Water? Well, have you ever been so thirsty that your mouth hurts from the dryness? Here’s my (perhaps weird) modern day analogy.

The other day I was getting my teeth cleaned at the dentist. I have a genetic propensity to accumulate plaque at an alarming rate, necessitating that I get a thorough tooth cleaning every three months. (Side note: exposure therapy is a lie. The frequency with which I have to endure the sensory nightmare of hands and instruments in my mouth does in fact, not diminish by repetition.)

So, the dentist is scraping my teeth with that horrible instrument and the hygienist is using a suction in my mouth. By my count, that’s three hands in my mouth, and two metal instruments, if anyone’s wondering. The suction is on overdrive, I haven’t a bit of wetness left in my mouth and I can now feel moisture being pulled up from my toes. My mouth is pure cotton at this point, a sensation that’s so horrible I can feel my body going into sensory overwhelm. This is the point when I notice a slow trickling of cool water in my parched mouth, a growing relief from the agony from just before. (Either the hygienist had a second instrument in my mouth the whole time, bringing the total number of things jammed into Gail's mouth to five, or her suction device doubles as a water irrigation tool).

The contrast of cotton mouth to moisture is like the difference between death and living water. To me, that’s a much more relatable analogy to understand what the soothing presence of Yeshua feels like, than broken cisterns and dry wells contrasted with springs of water (living water was an idiom for live springs of water) that dotted the landscape of the land of Canaan.

No, “Jesus is my dental irrigator” doesn’t have the same poetic imagery as “living water” but this way of seeing it sure leaves me with an embodied experience that the ancient analogy can’t touch. It's part of me now, never to be forgotten. 

Numbing promises that we’ll be taken out of the pain but the truth the numbing gods won’t tell you is that you have to stay numbed for ever and that’s a living death. Yeshua comes near and sits with you in the tough feelings, leaving your humanity intact, allowing you to feel and really live with Him. And being with Him makes all the difference in the world.

You better believe in three months’ time I’ll be taking Jesus my dental irrigator with me. I’ll make room in my mouth for Him!