Episode 101: I’m Stuck!

Have you ever tried to squeeze into a space that appeared too small, or not even appeared to be too small; it was simply too small, but you figured you would squeeze into it anyway. This squeeze or force, if you want to call it, left you crying out, Help, I’m Stuck! And you stayed in that position until someone came to help you, or maybe you figured out how to untangle yourself. Being stuck doesn’t help with us being resilient because resiliency involves being able to adapt to change. We all get stuck every once in a while; but when this condition becomes our MO, then what? Tune into this episode to find out. Just in case you missed last week’s episode, click here.

Podcast Transcription:

Part 1

Speaker 0    00:00:23    <inaudible>, Valley of Grace.

Speaker 1    00:01:05    This is the healing our brokenness podcast, where we dissect problems and solutions that exist among broken people, living in a broken world. And we also believe that we’re going from broken relationships to resilience and flourishing, and the title of this episode, episode 101, is “I’m stuck”. Now, when you think of somebody saying I’m stuck, it actually makes me think of my daughter when she was two years old and she would get into the kitchen chair at the table.

And she liked to pretend like she was stuck so I could come over and help her. And, you know, kids do all kinds of things for attention, but that was one of her things. And my son would say, ‘Oh, mom, someone needs to help her. She’s stuck.”  And in turn, I would say, “No, she’s not stuck at all. She’s gonna figure it out.”

Speaker 1    00:02:11   She would keep this up until I ended up going over there and putting  her in the chair or getting on her before she would finally go on and sit down in the chair. And it wasn’t too long before that “I’m stuck” stopped. But anyways,  the kind of stuck I’m talking about today is when it comes to grief. And one thing about grief is that we all have our own timetable. 

It is not something that can be rushed. I would say some of us want to rush it. We wish we can just zoom past/plow through.  That’s not how grief works. Grief is a process, and that process has got to be done. Some people when they grieve, they go through the entire five steps: the anger, the denial, the bargaining, acceptance,etc.

Part 2

Speaker 1    00:03:11    And then some of us may skip over one, do it all kind of ways out of order. I know with me, when I was grieving my divorce, my grief was all over the place. There was anger initially, but then my brain because of the trauma could not process the anger. Instead of processing anger, flashbacks and violent images occurred.  And so the anger started to come in towards the end of my healing process from the divorce. Unfortunately, now in the scriptures, we have Samuel caught up in grieving over Saul.

Speaker 1    00:04:11   Saul was King and God had decided he was done. A done deal due to disobedience, extreme insecurity, and rebellion.  Basically, God said,” You’re not King anymore. I’ve dethroned you. Samuel’s job was to go and appoint a new King.

And it was going to be the one that God was going to anoint. Samuel had been grieving Saul’s dethroning for a while.  When it comes to other people’s grief, we don’t want to be judgment.  However, in Samuel’s case, he was stuck on grieving something that had been going on too long.  The scripture lets us know this by what God said, “the Lord said to Samuel, how long will you griev for Saul? 

Part 3

Speaker 1    00:05:09    When I have rejected him as King over Israel, fill your horn with oil and go, I will send you to Jesse, the Bethlehemite, I have chosen a King for myself among his sons.” Okay. So there are some times when we’re grieving so long that we have to be pulled out by something or someone, but we choose to stay in. Grief can make you comfortable.

And, they can get to the point of being stuck in it and trapped if we’re not careful, you know? And so basically God was telling Samuel we’re done with this. We’re done with a capital D get up, let’s get moving. We’re done. Let’s get back to growing and moving forward.

Speaker 1    00:06:09   With us, there are times when God’s like, “We’re done with that relationship, we’re done with that friendship. We’re done with that job. We’re done with that house, that car, that opportunity.  Get up and move forward. 

As I said before, this is not with everything.  But a lot of things can end up like this if we’re not careful.  God has been telling us we’re done, and we’re still trying to keep it going, drawing it out. And God has closed the door on it, but we’re still trying to stay in the hallway hoping it will open or climb in through the window. When we’re done, we have to make ourselves get up so as to be able to adapt to change and be resilient.

Part 4

Speaker 1    00:07:05    When God says we’re done , we need to be able to be able to say that we’re done in our minds and in our hearts and in our souls. If we go according to what we feel, nothing will get done.  We have to push past the feelings. I don’t feel like washing dishes. I’m not washing dishes. And sometimes that’s just what we need in order to nourish ourselves. We need to not do what we normally do. 

Speaker 1    00:07:53    But a lot of times we make it our MO.  I don’t feel like doing that. I don’t feel like combing my hair today. I don’t feel like going down the street to the store, but I need more milk. I don’t feel like getting tissue from the store, whatever it is.

We don’t feel like doing it so we can get comfortable and not do it. And then, next thing you know, three months have passed, and we haven’t vacuumed, or whatever we are holding off on.  Grief is the same way.  We can get stuck in it.  We can’t go according to what someone else is doing.  We have to go according to what our system is telling us. And that way we’ll be able discern whether we’re ready to move on or not. And more importantly, whether God is telling us this through sermons,  sitting in stillness, reading his word, using others, etc.

Part 5

Speaker 1    00:09:03    And then we want to be careful judging people who are in grief and need to stay in it longer. Grief shows up differently for everybody. Some people’s grief shows up as rage. Some people’s grief shows up as looting or self-harm. Some people’s grief shows up as promiscuity, alcoholism, drug addictions, indigestion problems, crying, sadness, rage, vomiting, you name it. Some people have blood vessels to burst in their eyes as part of their grief. So when we get to the point of judging grief, we have to be very careful because we never know how we will react when it comes to our turn.

Speaker 1    00:10:08    Staying in grief longer than necessary causes us to engage in broken relationships, hinders resiliency, and our relationships with important people in our lives:   friends, our parents, our children, small group members, etc. We still have live life while we walk through grief. 

Part 6

Speaker 1    00:11:08    There are some times where we need to be alone. Other times, it may not be good to isolate. The devil want us to be by ourselves, which is not God’s plan.   So I hope that something resonated with you from what I said, as we go from broken relationships to resilience and flourishing, I want to thank you for being faithful listeners every week. I want to give a shout out to Timothy Horton for bringing the intro and outro music to us every week.


Speaker 1 00:13:03 And that song is entitled Valley of Grace. And it can be found wherever music is sold. Healing Our Brokenness podcast is on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, and on Amazon music, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, etc. So, if this is blessing your life in any kind of shape, form or fashion, if you could please give a shout out to your friends, your neighbors, your family members, and ask them to follow us.  Until Next Time.   Valley of Grace.

Speaker 0    00:12:54    <inaudible>.