Episode #184 When Sacred and Ordinary Collide: Feeling God Close – Heartbreak / Give Your Heart a Break

Hey friends, it's Jen and welcome to this episode of Good God Talks where we're drawing near to God in these everyday moments of our day-to-day lives. And my “everyday moment” today is quite a bit out of the ordinary for me.

I actually got home just a few hours ago from a short hospital stay with our oldest son. I'm so grateful for good medical care and for medicines and for him being able to get the support he needs.

For those of you with kiddos with asthma, you can probably relate to this where a virus or an infection of any kind can cause a flare up needed just a bit more support for his oxygen levels to get stabilized again.

So thankfully, we're home and I'm happy to be recording this episode for you in the midst of our heartbreak or giving our heart a break series. And today is one of those episodes where we get to bring God the things that are hard or heavy or painful for our hearts.

Last night my son and I spent the night in the hospital.
And again, while I am so grateful for the care that we received, that's not a place that anyone really wants to be. We didn't plan for that to happen. And I found myself in the midst of our ER visit and then our overnight hospital stay, thinking about this concept of thin places.

And that's what I want to talk about in today's episode. Now some of you might be familiar with this term, thin places. It's an ancient phrase that was used by unbelievers and also Christian Celtics, to describe a physical, tangible place where you could go, where they believed we had closer proximity to the spiritual realm. They believe that these were geographical locations, where the distance separating the divine and the mortal collapsed. Where you could have a greater awareness of our spiritual reality using our five senses, even while living in our physical reality here on earth.

And I kept thinking about this in the hospital room, because every place gets to be a thin place.

Every season gets to be a season of sensing God's closeness.

I'm going to read a few passages for us. The first one from Psalm 139:7-12 in the ESV, it says,

“​​Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” (Psalm 139:7-12)

I also wanna read for us from the New Testament in Acts chapter 17 I'll read some parts from verses 24 through 28 of that chapter.

“The God who made the world and everything in it…he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything… that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’” Acts 17:24a,25b,27-28a

See, no matter where we are, God is close and at the ready. Any place that we are, any season that we are in affords us the opportunity to know that God is close because in him we live and move and have our being.

And so there in that hospital room, as I'm caring for my son and praying for my son, I'm thinking about this concept of thin places. And I'm asking God, make this room a thin place. Show me how you are here with me. Help me be mindful of you. Direct my prayers, direct my steps. I worshiped in this room and I intentionally took moments of time to recognize that God was there with my son and there with me too. And so I encourage you, if you're going through a difficult season, if you find yourself in a place that you do not want to be in, don't discount that as a time or a place that is separated from God. In actuality, God is still close. And sometimes in those hard pressed places, we're looking for him a little bit more fervently. I found for myself, especially in those crushed, hard places, I'm able to sense him a little bit more because I'm especially aware of my need for him.

It reminds me of Psalm 34:18,

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)

If your energy is thin, if your patience is thin, if your faith feels thin, if life feels hard or fragile, know that God is close to you, even there. And we're going to ask him to show us how this is true.

And so here's our question that you can ask God today,

God, I need you in this place I'm in right now. Please show me how you're here with me.

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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