Don’t we love a good rescue story. It’s the stuff fairy tales of made of. Knights in Shining armour, eagles that carry you to the destination, the dog that finds the lost boy. A hero swooping in at the last moment. We automatically look for someone or something to rescue when we get stuck, or lost, or trapped. Yes, even you. Who or what are you expecting to rescue you? Today I have an interesting twist on a journal exercise that I’ve pulled from Psalm 18. Read it, grab your journals and join me.
Psalm 18:
Most Poetic The One I Usually Refer to Easier to Read Easiest to Read
I remember the pain being a young awkward teenager and having a bully at school turn his cruel attention toward me. On one such painful day, before the teacher entered the classroom, my tormentor twisted my arm behind my back, pushed me to the back of the classroom and smashed my head into the bookcase. I do not know how many classmates saw but it felt to me like everyone was watching and not one dared to stand up for me..
The teacher entered, always a bit too late, and we scurried to our desks. It was a test day and I sat silently crying as I desperately tried to make sense of the questions in front of me. As soon as I finished my exam, I grabbed my things and left the school. We lived 8 long miles down a dusty gravel road and I headed home on foot.
Miserable thoughts swirled and tried to choke the life out of me on that trek toward home. I was embarrassed, not sure how I’d ever walk into that classroom again. And i was scared. If it happened once it could happen again tomorrow. It could be worse.
The silence of the classroom screamed that no one liked me and no one would be there for me. My wounded heart trudged the miles wanting so badly for someone to rescue me. I wanted someone to stand up for me. I hoped the teacher would have picked up the phone and reported to my mom that I had left the school looking upset.. If that didn’t happen surely the school bus driver would question my absence, maybe even suggest someone should look for me. I look back in sadness on that young teen because the feeling that no one cared was carving a story line into my soul.
When I arrived home I received solace as usual from the animals on our farm. I hoped when my parents returned home from work that they would notice I wasn’t myself. I wanted an attuned parent – but whatever happened in their day they didn’t notice or perhaps I was just that adept at hiding my pain. I know now I could and should’ve advocated for myself but at that age, at that point, I had no voice. I saw only one source of rescue and in true human folly, I hid from potential sources of rescue.
Today, our journal exercise calls us to acknowledge a 3 part act in our life. Our ancient friend from Psalm 18 completed a similar exercise. We will learn from his example and apply it to our own lives.
Psalm 18 Intro
in Psalm 18, our ancient friend starts by giving us a hint as to who his rescuer is and he says some pretty nice things about him. He pens the first few lines from the other side of the struggle – the place we want to get to. Sometimes when we don’t have hope, we need to borrow it from someone else; We have all been inspired by someone else’s triumphant story at one point or other in our lives. So the 1st 3 verses are that. For those of you raised in rhe church, it’s like a good old testimony time.
Journal Exercise:
Column 1: Just Me
In your journal I want you to make 3 columns;
This exercise comes from Transforming Trauma by James Gordon with an added twist from me. It can be used as an art assignment and if you can bring yourself to draw today, it may be the best way to work through this exercise. Art opens up a different part of our brain and can be very helpful in healing trauma. So draw this if you can.
In the first column, I want you to draw a picture or representation of yourself. Dont overthink this. Just let your intuition lead you and draw. You can add some words or characteristics if you want. What do you know about yourself. Don’t take forever and don’t judge your artwork. This is not an art class.
Column 2: Me & My Struggle
In vs. 4 & 5, our ancient friend recaps the moment of struggle in his life:
“The cords of death entangled me, the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me; The cords of the grave could around me, the snares of death confronted me.”
Psalm 18:4-5
He draws a vivid picture of his struggle. We are not told what his struggle is. Although at the top of the chapter, it does say it’s from David when he was delivered from Saul. Of course the scholars doubt that .We are not going to get into that debate. It doesn’t make any difference for what we are doing today. What I want you to take from this is how the writer created a vivid visual representation of his struggle…and it didn’t include a picture of the person he was struggling with.
In the second column I want you to draw, or find descriptive words, to symbolize your struggle. I had one client draw a ramp in her path covered in outward facing spikes. Each spike, she informed me, was a painful incident from her past. How can you, like our ancient friend, visualize and symbolize your struggle. Again, let your internal intuition symbolize it for you. Don’t overthink it.
Interlude: The Rescuer
Vs 7 – 18 – is a very detailed and powerful picture of his rescuer; We are going to come back to that in a moment.
I want us to finish the 3rd column first;
Column 3: Me with My Struggle Over
Our writer describes what life was like for him after he was rescued:
- He is brought into a spacious place; vs. 19
- His rescuer delights in him vs. 19
- He’s not snuffed out vs 28
- Where he was in darkness before it’s now turned to light vs 28
- He can run through a barricade; He can scale a wall. I can do what didn’t seem possible before
- “He makes my feet like the feet of deer, He enables me to stand on the heights.” Have you watched videos of mountain goats on a mountain – they live in scary and dangerous places and raise their young up there; To me that speaks of doing things that others look at you and say – How do you do that? But for you it’s easy, it’s just how you are made;
- He trains my hands for battles. The struggles I’ve gone through prepare for the struggles ahead;
- His arms can bend a bow of bronze . Again, another way of saying, you can do hard things that seemed impossible before.
If you were to jump into the future and capture the moment when you had victory over your struggle; what would it look like? How would you be different? Which of those stands out to you? How you capture it on your own paper.
One of the questions I ask in most of my first sessions is “If counseling does what you hope it will, how will life have changed for you? Part of that is so I know where to direct my tools and strategies, but mostly it is for the client to have a picture of where they want to go because I know if they can picture it, they can most often get there.
So take a moment and draw your picture of you on the other side of your struggle. What does that look like? What does that feel like? What would be possible for you over there?
Observe:
Is there anything that surprised you about your first picture?
Are there things you missed out? Have you neglected to include aspects of your character or admirable qualities?
How did the problem that emerged in the second drawing capture the pain?
Does it symbolize a predictable acknowledgment of limitations and constraint?
Does seeing it on the page help you understand and deal with it?
Bonus Section from Trish
This work may be enough. and is the end of the assignment from Transforming Trauma. But the Psalmist shows us something that I feel might be crucial in this process.
This author has a really powerful visual of his God: mountains shaking, smoke coming from his nostrils; consuming fire from his mouth. Sounds angry but that anger is not at him but is instead at his enemy. It is a picture of a God who responds with force and power when his children cry out to Him. He believes his God loves him and delights in him.
Delighting in You
I love the word delight; For many of us it’s foreign.
When has someone delighted in you? It had a sense of being able to see your weakness or inabilities and still completely loving you anyways.
Not tolerating you. Not expecting more from you. He loves you – your laugh, your sense of humour, your ability to organize things, or your inability to keep it all together.
What would shift in your world, if you imagined God, or your Higher Power, as looking at you with loving eyes, seeing you without judgement or condemnation?
Lesser Rescuers
So often we look for lesser things to rescue us. In the middle of a hard day, I often look forward to ice cream at the end of the day to rescue me from the stress. Or it may be a glass of wine, an Amazon purchase, or perhaps we look to the people in our lives. Ex. If my husband would only help out; if my children would listen, if my co-workers would only do their part. We want the people in our worlds to rescue us.
Do you ever find yourself thinking: Life will be better when…” When I win the lottery. When I find a better job. When I get through this busy season.
We put our hope in a lot of things to rescue us from our current struggle; What if you adopted our ancient writer’s worldview that there is a God who is eager to rescue you. Who wants what’s best for you. Who hears you when you cry. Who delights in you – just as you are, still in your struggle;
If you drew a picture I want you to go back to that picture and draw a pair of kind eyes; watching you; Soft loving, caring eyes;
What does that bring up for you? What does that shift.
Feel free to close off your journal time. If you feel like you want to share your pictures, I’d love to see them or talk that over with your own counsellor. Before I sign off though I wanted to take another moment and talk about the Rescuer that this Psalm brings up.
Hugs to you my friend. Thanks for joining me. I hope you found this helpful and if you need to share what you have uncovered, you know where to find me.
Now go take on your day.