To get started,
I encourage you to take a few nice deep breaths,
Lengthening your inhale and exhale as you get settled wherever you are sitting or laying down.
If you're comfortable,
You can close your eyes,
Letting your mind be curious,
Noticing any mental imagery that might naturally come to mind throughout this guided meditation and prayer.
Before we spend time with Psalm 55,
I encourage you to bring to mind a clear image of the part of you that is feeling overwhelmed,
Part of you that would love to just run away,
Somehow fly away,
Any part of you that would love to go and be and live anywhere else,
Somehow free from whatever is causing overwhelm.
Picturing a part of us like this can help us from diving headfirst into the perspective of the part that is feeling these weighty things.
It gives us a different perspective,
A different viewpoint,
Noticing what is happening for the part of us,
Seeing that pain,
That overwhelm from a different vantage point that's not fully consumed in the overwhelm itself.
So taking a nice deep breath,
See what it's like to view this part of you in front of you,
Noticing what comes to mind,
How you envision the overwhelm,
What you observe about the experience of this part of you.
And as I read through portions of this psalm,
I invite you to be curious about how these words might resonate with this part of you,
Being curious to see if it feels comforting for this depth of your soul to know they are not alone in their experience.
These are ancient words that have been spoken and sung by countless other people through thousands of years,
Words that have been preserved as part of our faith tradition.
Psalm 55 verses 1 through 8 from the NET.
Listen,
O God,
To my prayer.
Do not ignore my appeal for mercy.
Pay attention to me and answer me.
I am so upset and distressed.
I am beside myself because of what the enemy says and because of how the wicked pressure me,
For they hurl trouble down upon me and angrily attack me.
My heart beats violently within me.
The horrors of death overcome me.
Fear and panic overpower me.
Terror overwhelms me.
I say,
I wish I had wings like a dove.
I would fly away and settle in a safe place.
Look,
I will escape to a distant place.
I will stay in the wilderness.
I will hurry off to a place that is safe from the strong wind and gale.
Taking a nice deep breath,
Again focusing on the mental imagery of a part of you that's been experiencing overwhelm,
Gently consider,
Did these words resonate?
What stood out the most to you?
What word,
Phrase,
Or image spoke to the depths of your soul?
We're going to pause and chew on the Hebrew of the phrase,
Fear and panic overpower me,
Terror overwhelms me.
A literal translation of the second line,
Terror overwhelms me,
Reads,
Horror or shuddering covers me.
Giving a picture of being completely covered or weighed down by fear to the point of terror,
Completely covered or weighed down by fear to the point of trembling.
The New Living Translation tries to convey the Hebrew of this verse by saying,
Fear and trembling overwhelm me and I can't stop shaking.
Maybe you've experienced physical shaking from fear or overwhelm.
Maybe this isn't something that has happened externally for you,
But you've felt that internally.
Either way,
The picture painted for us is one of being shaken to our core,
Facing something that pierces our very being down to our nervous system.
It's hard for me not to think about our nervous systems and how God wired us when I read this psalm because I can't help but notice the language here about flying away and escaping that describes the desire to flee that can be provoked when our nervous system is activated.
This is what we call our flee or flight response when talking about fight,
Flight or freeze.
And I love that we have an ancient psalm describing this instinct that we experience today.
A longing to run away,
Flee,
Escape,
Go be anywhere else but here because whatever is here covering us,
Overwhelming us to the point of literal or figurative trembling and shaking in our inmost parts is just too much.
I invite you to pause and check in with the part you're focusing on.
How is this part of you receiving these words?
What resonates?
What is comforting?
Or what doesn't feel connected or doesn't fit for you?
Taking a nice deep breath,
We'll read from a verse toward the end of the psalm,
Verse 22.
It says,
Throw your burden upon the Lord and he will sustain you.
A couple of lines later,
The psalmist ends the psalm saying,
But as for me,
I trust in you.
It's important that all parts of us know that these words are not meant to shame us into trusting God when we feel like we don't have hope or faith.
These words don't shame us into feeling like our theology is bad or weak or like we need to get it all together or just power through.
Instead,
These words invite us into the space where both our overwhelm and our reaching out to God can exist together.
This is certainly easier said than done and is often a process.
Wherever you are today and wherever the overwhelmed part of you is right now,
I invite you to see if this overwhelmed part would like to throw their burden on the Lord,
Asking him to sustain and cultivate trust where we cannot sustain these things ourselves.
And if the overwhelmed part of you is not ready for this,
I encourage you to be respectful and curious about that and take time to check in with this part and see what they might mean to be open to this in the future.
If the overwhelmed part of you is open to throwing their burden to God,
Take a nice deep breath.
Let your mind construct mental imagery around this.
What does the burden look like that would be thrown to God?
What does the overwhelm that is covering them look like?
And what would it look like for this to be thrown off of them and thrown to God?
Instead,
How would it feel for this part of you to be lighter,
Free of this overwhelm,
This covering,
This burden?
And if it doesn't feel possible for this part of you to throw the burden,
But they long for relief,
Consider if this part of you or any other part of you can ask God to remove it,
To take it from them.
I encourage you to continue some intentional deep breaths,
Exhaling along with any sense of the burden being removed and inhaling with any sense of lightness or peace entering in.
Nice slow breaths in and out,
Savoring any relief.
Any unburdening this part of you is experiencing.
You can pause the audio if you'd like to spend more time with this imagery before I close this with a prayer.
Lord God,
You know the depths of us.
You are with us and see our fear,
Our overwhelm,
Our pain.
You know exactly why any part of us is longing to run away,
To escape,
To flee.
You know the longing these parts of us hold to be anywhere else,
To go live,
Settle in another place,
Starting over or being free from things or people that feel too painful,
Too overwhelming to continue to face.
I ask that you would graciously cover us with your mercy,
Replacing the covering,
The overwhelm,
With a soothing balm for the depths of our souls.
A soothing balm that would calm and cover every facet of us all the way down to our nervous system,
The core of our being that you created.
Would you give each of us an image of your care wrapping around us,
Removing any burden or covering that we cannot remove on our own,
Keeping us in your care in the most freeing and unburdening way.
Amen.
