Trapped

 

As we continue to pray the antiphons each day, during the hours of the day, today I offer one from Psalm 25,

“Release my trapped heart”. 

 

What is trapped in your heart today?  What is lingering on and on in your mind/heart/body right now?  Is there an emotion that keeps fueling and feeding your life?  What are you returning to and why?  These are not easy questions as we spend a lot of our life on autopilot. 

 

Or maybe ask, who holds the key to the locked door of what you are holding?  Often we think others do, but there is a choice we make in continuing to give the power to feel trapped to another person, to let loose of our own agency.  To be sure, I don’t hold the keys to every locked door in my life, but I do hold several of them. 

 

These four words, “release my trapped heart”, hold so much possibility and promise of the Holy entering.  God is One of liberating love.  God is One who brings us out of tight, confining spaces and places into a sacred spaciousness where we can breathe.  Too often we stay trapped in corners because that is where we feel safe.  Connect this to yesterday where we prayed the antiphon about being hidden.  Yes, we need bench time away and we need to let loose our own wings to fly.  I remember the college orientation for our kids and the phrase that stuck with me is, “You gotta let them go so they can grow.”  My kids were not going to grow if I locked them in their room and tried to stop time.  They needed to step out, knowing that we were there, to test out their wings.  Too often, I blame others for keeping me trapped, when it is really my own fears and not wanting to fail.  What and where do I feel trapped, and who told me that I needed to stay there?  Are there other voices encouraging and inviting you to part-take in God’s liberating love?  Hold this antiphon as a prayer for the rest of this day and year, for I believe these four words can be some of the most powerful and profound in our lives today.  Amen.