Verklempt

I love this word. It means “choked with emotion (German verklemmt = emotionally inhibited in a convulsive way).”

Yep.

Been there, felt that.

There are times in our lives when we’re clueless, befuddled, yet we have so much inside of us, so much “stuck in our craw,” but we don’t know how to get it out. We’re verklempt.

I think there’s a self-inflicted pressure to know and say something exactly articulate and noble- even when we pray. We make prayer something so difficult, that in our verklempt moments, we feel condemned and complete failures when we can’t even talk to God “Right.” We should be able to say this, in this way. When we don’t-or can’t- we feel discouraged for even trying prayer out in the first place!

I’ve been there. Have you?

It’s not hopeless, however. For in these verklempt, messy moments of life and/or prayer, God knows…

“Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish.”
Isaiah 46:10

That means our verklempt, messy moments don’t freak out God. He gets it; thank God, He gets US!!!!

And while getting us complicated little critters, He also gives us some help for our speechlessness, our stuck-ness, our verklempt prayers filled with too much emotion and not enough articulation. His Spirit is with us:

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
Romans 8:26


Yep, the antidote to verklempt.

We’re not as hopeless as we feel when we’re struggling with talking to God and dealing with our lives. So, pray. Pray as your true self in that moment, a being searching for the words, not knowing what to do, being imperfect and needy. God can handle it.

God is always helping you, even when your words can’t seem to help yourself. Copyright © 2012 by Sheryle Cruse