Tongues Still Work
In a past life this title would've meant something very different.
I’ve always had a connection to the Divine. Even as a child, I would spend hours in my bedroom just talking to God. Other kids were hiding under their blankets with flashlights, reading books (to be fair, I did my share of that, too), but I was lying in bed speaking in tongues. Mind you, I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. No one had taught me about speaking in unknown tongues or tapping into my heavenly language. All I knew was that my little creative mind created a language no one understood, not even me.
I didn’t know what I was saying when I spoke whatever it was I was speaking. It wasn’t like speaking French, or Russian, or Japanese (all of which I eventually studied). This was different. Speaking it produced emotions I couldn’t articulate otherwise. Heaviness? Came out as tears. Excitement? Produced laughter. Anger or Frustration? I’m not sure what cussing sounded like in Jesus’s time, but I’m convinced I cussed. The point I’m trying to make is that this language, these utterances, were often times the only things that kept me on this side of sanity. Yes, even as a child.
So, fast-forward to a few days ago. I was carrying a weight I couldn’t shake (why did my mind just go to ShakeWeights? If you don’t know what those are, I’m old, and you’re not). Also, this is the way my brain works sometimes, so if detours in stories bother you, feel free to exit on the nearest off-ramp.
Anywho, A few days ago, I was carrying a weight I couldn’t shake. I knew what it was. Grief. Not just mine, but everyone else’s.
I’m an empath.
Now I don’t know what that means in a spiritual sense, but I can feel other people’s emotions. I can usually maintain it fairly well, but when I have to do too much “peopling,” it can wear me out. Last weekend, I had to do a LOT of that while still processing the death of someone both my husband and I loved and respected. Hundreds of people in one place, coupled with the grief shared on social media, sat on me like a cement vest I couldn’t take off. By Wednesday, I needed a good ol ugly cry. But the tears wouldn’t come.
Then, almost as if on cue, the following scripture popped into my head:
Come to Me, all of you who are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
In my office, I have a little corner where I go to pray or just be still and know that God is God. I left my desk, got out of my wheelchair, and sat.
When I was a child, I could open my mouth and the language would come. On this day, I had to prime the pump (again, if you missed this reference, you’re not old like me). The words (if you can call them that) were stuck in my mouth. I could feel my tongue pressing against my teeth, trying to force them out, and finally, a sound emerged.
I took a deep breath and exhaled, and more sound came out.
Breath. Sound.
Breath Sound.
BreathSound
Words
Sentences
And then release.
The more I spoke this language I still didn’t understand, the more I felt the tears rise to the surface.
With every utterance, with every breath, the weight lifted and the tears arrived like rain after a drought, breaking up the dry parched fallow ground.
The emotions I couldn’t access, the heaviness I couldn’t shake, the floodgates I needed opened were released.
And my language, my tongues, was the key.
They worked for me as a child and they still work now. This language. MY language.
That I don’t understand. Still. But God does.
And that’s really all that matters.