EMDR Therapy, 8 am Pilates, and the Patience of God

Returning to Substack (and Still Healing)

I took a little break from sending weekly emails because I was exhausted as a new mom and I was asking myself lots of fun questions like, Who am I? What am I doing with my life? Do I still want to do this? and Will it ever get better? *Cue existential crisis.*

After months of trying all sorts of therapy including some very woo-woo options, physical therapy, lifestyle changes, and intentionality through reading and researching I thought I would return to my substack with answers. Instead, I still have none.

I feel excited and hopeful even with my lack of an answer. I don’t feel like I’m “healed” but I do feel comfortable with this new reality that maybe I won’t be. Or at least not in the way I thought. Maybe there isn’t a finish line like I’d hoped for but maybe I can inch my way closer and closer to a whole and full life even with these new pieces of my story. In the therapy world they would probably say I’m integrating my story. In the faith world, I think it’s something along the lines of living fully and holistically.

As an American Christian in the Western world its challenging to do. But I’ve learned my body refuses to lie, always, but especially after trauma, and my soul, spirit and mind are demanding that I listen to it. When I do, I end up closer to God, not further away. But it’s not a sermon I’ve ever heard preached before. It is something I’ve found a lot of other Christians have experienced though as I’ve navigated the past eight months.

This might sound a little scary coming from your Christian devo writer girly. (:

To be candid, my therapist suggested I might be deconstructing. But I don't really like all the baggage that word comes with. One of my friends suggested I’m just deep in the “dark night of the soul.” Some people might say I’m still depressed or going through a big life change. But I think it’s actually a willingness to be honest that has crept up on me over the past few months and won’t fade away.

I’m getting to know a new version of myself and I actually kind of like her. I’m more willing to admit the disappointments I’ve experienced over the past few months and the reality that most of them are tied to people of faith. I still wholeheartedly believe in God and I also know that people will always misrepresent him (myself included.) But I’m also willing to just say that I’ve been mistreated and I’m really sad about how it all happened.

When I took a break from sending my weekly newsletter I think it was partly because I felt a bit like an imposter. I didn’t feel “Christian enough” when I felt like the only emotions I had were so messy. I felt like I had to untangle my mess before I could show up again. But then…there’s the gospel.

The God I know to be real and true doesn’t ask us to show up perfectly or poised. He promises that his power is made perfect in our weakness. I think the ways I used to connect with God haven’t felt like they are “working” lately. But maybe that’s the whole point.

I can’t force God to show his face to me, encounter him in my preferred timeframe, or create some sort of spiritual experience through set steps and routines. Routines aren’t bad and can often be helpful but I have to confess sometimes when I think of these promises of increased closeness to God based on a step by step process they make me feel lonely.

It makes me feel like I’m the only one who can’t seem to muster up enough strength and grit to encounter God. When really, if we’re honest, none of us can. It was never about the amount of our strength or the size of our faith anyway.

When I have a quiet moment to reach for my Bible I find myself still crying out to God. Often, picturing a few very visceral moments in my son’s birth story that I’ve walked through again and again in therapy through EMDR. I still feel the cry of my body and soul echoing, why?

And truthfully, I get no answer.

I feel closest to God when I’m moving my body. Something about 8am Pilates classes feels highly spiritual to me right now. Maybe because I’m so “in” the body that I felt like failed and betrayed me throughout my son’s birth. So I show up and I meet God there. It’s not the kind of thing you’d be recommended to do in most Christian circles but I’m starting to ask myself, why not?

Most often when I am brave enough to express my true feelings toward God right now the responses I receive are along the lines of “pray, read your Bible, and go to church.” But it’s a fine line between these things being things we do in true reliance on the Holy Spirit or as a self-help checklist we do in our own power with a godly twist.

Our church attendance can be perfect while our heart is far from God. Christopher Cook says, “Where self help says to look down, and in, and try harder we’re saying look up, and out, and surrender.”

While some of the advice to simply to godly things has great intentions, it’s only effective with the power of God and a surrendered heart.

As my routines have shifted I’ve been surprised by the places I’ve found God and the places where he seems to be absent. Initially, that reality was terrifying as a Christian writer.

But I wonder if where I am right now is actually the best place I could possibly be. Because I’m not relying on my own habits, practices, or rituals to draw me near to God. I’m simply trusting that God is near—even when I’m disappointed in church culture, frustrated with the people of faith who have let me down, and sad about the way my world is shifting since trauma came into it.

Anytime I attempt to reach for my Bible, only to set it down with another onslaught of messy emotions, I sense the Holy Spirit near. Gentle, kind, and insistent that God’s love is more patient than I currently understand. It’s as if he is saying it’s ok if you’re not ready yet, I’ll wait. And he does.

For me, right now, I’ll keep meeting God in pilates.