The Wall 3/13/2022

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

I saw an inspirational saying the other day that actually stuck with me. Often times, and maybe I am just overly critical, those little nuggets of wisdom that we see people posting on social media are somewhat, well, for lack of a better term, cheesy. Yes, even as I typed it, it sounded very condescending.  I’ll go ahead and apologize now.  Anyway, the comment that stayed with me is what I want to talk about today.  I can’t promise a great deal of depth or even length today but maybe, just maybe I won’t end up falling victim to my own criticism from earlier. Though the way irony follows me around it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility.    

The saying was, to summarize, talking about a person telling their friend that they felt they had hit an emotional wall. The friend then responds that sometimes walls are put in front of us to lean upon and rest. Now that hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. Ok, prepare yourself for a bit of vulnerable honesty. Lately, for me, things have just been, well, a lot. I don’t want to put on a pity party or anything of the sort.  You know what I mean though.  There are those times that that we all go through where if it is not one thing it is another. We’ve all been though those little spans of time where it seems that things are always going wrong.  Or maybe things aren’t necessarily going wrong, but they seem to just pile up in such a way that one can’t help but get overwhelmed.  That’s somewhat where I’ve been as of late.  There has been some less than thrilling additives thrown in the mix I assure you but for the most part it is just thing upon thing upon thing that are stacking up.  It gets to the point that you have so many irons in the fire, each of which with its own attached set of reactions that you almost run out of feelings to feel.  Once you’ve poured out enough energy out of your stores there comes a time where you scrape bottom.  I suppose it happens to everyone but lately I have moseyed right up to that emotional wall and there it sits in front of me; tall, foreboding and a tad on the insurmountable side.

So now I suppose it is time to apply the second half of the inspiration that I stumbled upon.  If I am standing before an emotional wall I suppose now is as good a time as any to lean and rest. In pondering such a concept, I imagine the wall feels cool. You know how on a hot day when you put your cheek against something cool and metallic and your whole body suddenly feels better? In my mind that is what this wall is like.  It is unmoving but that makes it easier for it to take the weight of the burden I press against it. There are times that not much more than rest can help us move out of our place of being overworked or overstressed or over-everything.  It is at this point where I lean upon this wall that I must decide just how I will come to find the rest I so desperately need.  My circumstances may not change right away so it will be a challenge to find rest, even with a good place to distribute all that heavy load.

Because time and the accumulation of stuff waits for no man, it is at this point that I must look to Something beyond myself. It is at times like this that, knowing myself and at least a small sampling of people, I am unbelievably grateful that humanity is not all I have to rely on. Don’t get me wrong, there are some incredible people on this planet however you must know even if you are a pretty good example, we are a terribly flawed population.  I can certainly say so speaking for myself.  As a person of faith, that may be the most comforting thing that I can possibly imagine. I can rest in the fact that I do not have to depend on people to get me through these weary and barrier laden times.  I mean sure people can help, but we all have our own times where our lights are dimmer than others, so I need Someone sturdier.  I have to have Someone I can depend on Who isn’t subject to the hills and valleys that we mere mortals constantly experience. It is nice to think that the wall that seems so above and beyond that which we can handle, could possibly be to show us that in fact we really can’t handle it. 

Well, that doesn’t seem nice, you may be thinking, but hear me out.  What if that wall that stands in front of all of us at times, really was put there to show that our situation is in fact beyond us? What if it is meant to show us that though we can lean upon it and maybe find some temporary solace this wall really is an unsurmountable odd for us that we will inevitably face? And if something is more than we can deal with then we’ll have to look to Someone more than we are to address it with any meaningful impact.  This is where faith comes in.  Personally, I am thrilled that I don’t have to rely on my sad little self to cope with all the variety of shenanigans that life enjoys doling out.

I seemed to have yet again, found a way to fill up the pages with words even when I was certain that I wouldn’t be able to do so.  The gift and curse of wordiness strikes again.  From an inspirational tidbit some pretty large thoughts have bubbled up. I am hopefully learning to lean against the impenetrable wall. I also am trying to remember that no matter what circumstances have brought me to this blockade that while I lean and rest, it is probably most important to do what you almost automatically do when one reaches anything unpassable. Look up.