One of my modalities of self-care is to receive a regular massage from a licensed massage therapist. When many assorted tasks are pressing on me in my work as a pastor – and especially when there are members of my congregation or circles who are going through a tough time emotionally, whether it be a scary medical diagnosis, family dysfunction or conflict, recovering from violence or abuse – I begin to feel the weight of those cares and pressures in my body, especially in my shoulders, as without my conscious will or effort they tense up and ride up toward my ears.
It’s especially hard when the concern or concerns are things that very little can be done about except pray. The congregant whose cancer has returned, who is experiencing scary symptoms like inability to keep food down, massive headaches, shortness of breath, and so forth. The congregant who is struggling hard with chronic depression, feeling like she doesn’t matter to anyone and has no real reason to continue living, even though these things are not true; depression is a kind of demon that is very good at pouring lies into a person’s ears until they have a hard time seeing or believing the truth.
Reminding myself to relax and take a deep breath when I notice the tension mounting helps. Getting good sleep, plenty of downtime, and regular exercise helps. And my massage therapist has an incredible gift for soothing the aches and stress out of tired and tense muscles. A good cry can help a lot, too.
But there are times when even having remembered to do all these things, and staying in continuous (if disjointed) prayer, wordless or otherwise, I still find myself fretting. What’s going to happen to our beloved elder with cancer? Will our dear sister with depression be able to find a way out of it soon?
Sometimes the concern is simply awaiting a decision: will the congregation I have interviewed with and been dreaming about serving choose to call me? Will our mortgage application be approved? Will my niece be accepted into her first-choice college?
Knowing that all of these situations are really out of my hands, other than to walk beside the person in distress or anxiety and to pray with and for them doesn’t always suffice to completely unburden either myself or that person and their family. But I have struck upon a prayer practice that I and others have found tremendously helpful, that (if it needs a name) we might call “leaving it at the cross.”
We humans are physical, embodied beings. All that we know comes to us through our senses – not just the five best-known ones, taste, touch, smell, hearing, and sight, but also senses such balance, spatial location, and kinesthesia.
Even in the most low-church traditions, worship makes use of many of our senses, including our kinesthetic sense, in what Wilson Yates has called “the rudiments of dance.” We bow our heads to pray. We stand to sing the opening hymn. Before Covid restrictions, we might shake hands or even hug in passing the peace. We pass the offering plate and perhaps the trays of juice and bread for communion, or perhaps we make our way to the front to receive these elements. At Love Feast, we break bread together and wash one another’s feet.
When these movements are repeated and become habitual, they have the power, just by being made, to engage our spiritual senses. Bowing our heads puts us, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, in an attitude of prayer. Kneeling to wash another person’s feet builds within us not just a physical posture of humility, but a spiritual one.
So how can we teach our bodies to let go of the concerns and pressures that are tensing our muscles and weighing down our spirits? In Matthew 11:28, Jesus offers a gentle and loving invitation: “Come to Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Jesus truly does desire for us to be able to rest from our sorrows and griefs and burdens. The peace that Christ brings is a peace for our bodies, minds, and hearts, as well as for our souls.
But we humans – especially, I think, those of us formed in the intersecting cultures of American rugged individualism and the Protestant work ethic – have a strong, inchoate desire to hang onto our stresses and concerns, because that gives us the illusion of control. Letting go is hard and scary – even letting go and letting God – because in a sense, once we release our burdens to the Lord, they are no longer solely ours to decide what to do about and with. Surrendering that control is difficult; it may even feel like shirking responsibilities that are properly ours. Who is going to take care of my family if I don’t? Who is going to meet my congregation’s needs if I, as their pastor, don’t do it all myself?
I Peter 5:7 enjoins us to “Cast all your cares upon God, for God cares for you.” Even though our struggles and griefs may seem overwhelming to us, at the same time, we may feel that we are terribly insignificant to God, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe. Sometimes the latter chapters of the book of Job are interpreted this way: that God hears all of Job’s complaints, his distress, despair, and righteous indignation to have all of his wealth, children, and health stripped away from him in a few short days, and then God responds in an almost mocking tone: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”
It almost sounds as though God is trying to put Job in his place. “You think you’ve got problems? You’re a speck, an atom, compared to all the things that I have ordered and organized and made.” It seems almost cruel, the way God responds to Job.
But what if we interpreted God’s speech to Job this way: “Dear Job, I see you suffering and it hurts my heart, too. But just for a moment, try and pull your head up out of your ash heap and look around. The universe is infinitely vast – and I made all of it. The stars of the heavens, the birds of the air, the mountains and the trees of the forests, the seas and all they contain are infinitely beautiful – and I made them all, and care for them. And here I am, listening to little old you. That’s how much you matter to me. I care about you personally, Job, and I know you are hurting and I am here.”
That’s not quite how the scripture puts it. But sometimes it can help – especially with mental health struggles like depression and anxiety, where our worries feed on themselves and grow deeper and darker – to lift up our heads, look around, and see how big the universe is. Put our concerns into perspective. The world doesn’t revolve around us, and yet our small and ordinary lives are still of concern to God, are still part of God’s infinitely complex plan, still precious and beloved to our God.
Wow.
The words of I Peter echo those of the Psalmist in Psalm 55:22: “Cast your burden on the Lord, who will sustain you.” So here we see three promises, all speaking directly to our human tendency to overburden ourselves with worries and fears: from the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Psalms. Jesus promises to give us rest. We are promised that God cares for us, cares about our problems and concerns, and that our God will sustain us.
So how do we “cast our cares” on God? Is there a kinesthetic practice we can do to help our bodies let go of sorrow and stress in the same way that bowing our heads stimulates a spiritual posture of prayer?
Once, several years ago, when I was desperately worried about something, I looked around my living room and saw the ceramic cross hanging there. Feeling a bit ridiculous, I picked up an empty box that I had just taken a mail-order delivery out of earlier that day. I held the box between my hands for several moments, eyes closed, envisioning the box as the situation about which I was so stressed and fretful. Then, uttering a prayer of release, I set the box down on the floor at the foot of the cross and offered a prayer of thanks as I moved away, expressing my gratitude to the Lord for taking this burden from me and allowing me to give it up.
Amazingly enough, within a few hours, I felt lighter. Engaging my kinesthetic sense by picking up the box and physically setting it down at the foot of the cross allowed me to let go of my burden spiritually, mentally, and emotionally as well, and truly leave it in God’s hands. I truly believe it was the Holy Spirit that led me to think of trying this practice. Silly as it may seem, it has worked well for me, and I have suggested it to any number of folks in the course of pastoral counseling and friendship.
Since everyone prays a little differently and has different cares and worries as well as different objects in their homes or other prayer spaces, I walk a person receiving pastoral counseling through the practice of “Leaving It At the Cross” like this:
First I ask, do you have a space in your home where you tend to do your praying? And is there a cross, icon, or other image or object toward which you focus your prayers?
Again, we humans are physical, embodied creatures. It really helps our minds, hearts, and spirits, at least sometimes, to solidify abstractions like “prayer” and “God” with something we can physically see. This doesn’t mean that we are engaging in idolatry or that we are praying to the object. Rather, like lighting a candle (and a candle would work just fine as a prayer image or object) or putting up a banner or cross in our meetinghouse sanctuary, our home prayer object helps our limited human senses connect with the Infinite, Ineffable, and Unseeable.
Next, I ask the person to select an object on which to focus their concerns and cares. It really doesn’t matter what this object is – I used an empty cardboard box – but if there is something that you have to hand that would serve really well to symbolize that which you are feeling worried and fearful about, use that! If you are concerned about a close relative who is hospitalized with Covid, maybe pick up a face mask. If you’re heartbroken about the catastrophic flooding in a neighboring community, fill a vessel with water. If your heart hurts for the whole world, maybe you have a small glass globe you can hold between your hands.
Then, just hold the object between your hands, and bring it near your face. Close your eyes and breathe deeply, in and out. As you exhale, envision that all your cares and worries about this person, this situation, are moving out of your stressed and weary body with each breath, and being held in and with the object in your hands.
When you’re ready, take the object to your prayer space and set it down in front of the cross, icon, candle, or other prayer object or image. Close your eyes and breathe deeply again, envisioning Christ receiving your concern into His gentle and loving care. Feel the weight of your worry pass from your body with each exhalation as you let go and let God handle the stressful situation.
Before you move away from your prayer space, offer a prayer of thanksgiving and gratitude to God for taking your burdens from you. Express your trust in God’s ability to handle whatever has been weighing you down, however awful or complicated it might seem to you. In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he advises, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” Giving thanks is an important part of this prayer practice – even before you have turned your concern over to God to work out the healing and grace your specific situation needs. Giving thanks is in itself a powerful and necessary spiritual practice, one that, when it becomes habitual, builds in us an “attitude of gratitude” toward all that our lives bring – even those things that bring sorrow. Even then, we give thanks to God for seeing us through – and we can do that even before we’ve reached the other side of our sorrow.
When I have the opportunity, I love worshipping with congregations that are largely African-American. There is an incredible quality of reliance on God’s grace and thanksgiving for God’s caring presence, a quality that comes out of generations of having been seen through “a way that with tears has been watered,” as James Weldon Johnson puts it in “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Folks who know firsthand how deep and dark the valley of the shadow of death can be, and how unfailing God’s presence has been through it all, are folks whose gratitude is sincere and unstinting.
The Whitestone congregation of the Church of the Brethren begins each Sunday worship with a time of praise-singing, and they have a large book of choruses and praise songs to choose from, well beyond what’s in the Brethren hymnal and supplement. If you are the type of person who prays, either aloud or silently, in song, you may find that Kelly Willard’s “Cares Chorus,” which I learned from the Whitestone praise book, is a fitting prayer for the practice of “Leaving It At the Cross.”1 Or perhaps some other familiar songs or hymns might become part of your practice.
Being baptized into Christian discipleship does not mean that all of our troubles and difficulties miraculously melt away. Indeed, it may very well mean that in a sense our concerns increase because the concerns of all of the Body of Christ and all of creation become our concerns. Christ never promised that we would be free of struggle, worry, or care. In fact, in the Farewell Discourse portion of the Gospel of John, Jesus promised the disciples, “In the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer! I have overcome the world.”
We can lay our cares at Christ’s feet, at the foot of the cross, and give thanks for his taking them up on our behalf and taking care of them – even before anything in our troubling situation changes – because through the cross, Christ has already overcome the world. We can let go of the fears and worries troubling our hearts and minds. After all,we know how deeply our God cares for us because we can trust in God’s promises to sustain us and give us rest.
What worries and cares are troubling your heart today that you could, symbolically and kinesthetically, take to the cross and leave in God’s loving hands through the practice of “Leaving It At the Cross”? Are you ready to help your body, heart, mind, and spirit truly let go and let God? Are you ready to release your sense of control over a situation that in truth is beyond your control, and trust in God’s loving power and powerful love to bring healing and grace? Find an object, go to your prayer space, and give the practice a try. May your burdens be lightened and may you find rest for your souls, in the name of our loving and healing Savior and Lord, Christ Jesus. Amen.
Bobbi Dykema is currently serving as pastor at First Church of the Brethren in Springfield, Illinois. She is also on the pastoral team of the Living Stream online Church of the Brethren and serves on the steering committee of the Womaen’s Caucus. Bobbi is passionate about racial and gender justice, beauty and the arts, and reading scripture as a living document.
- You can find a recording with lyrics of “Cares Chorus” here: https://youtu.be/zn7RHpQ6ots.