Noise & Prayer & Counseling

Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him.

—Psalm 62:1

One thing I’m learning about myself is that when it’s go-time, I turn up the volume, literally and figuratively. I blast hip-hop in my car, and I wipe away tears and take a deep breath and keep pushing. I become ravenous in my appetites—when I do have a free moment, I watch a show on TV while shopping online while flipping through a magazine, building a fortress of noise to keep out the sadness, the fear, the mess.

Instead of cranking up the volume and frantically avoiding honesty at all costs, I need prayer and counseling. Prayer and counseling are both about honesty, and they’re both about admitting need. I need help sifting through all my feelings and expectations and bruises. I need help and strength and a sense of God’s presence. I need to allow myself to be instructed by God’s Spirit and voice and not my own fear and weakness, so that I can make different choices. When the pressure’s on, my instinct is to abandon both prayer and counseling for a freer season down the road. But when do I need the grounding of both things more than in the whirling, intense seasons?