Heart Attack
When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, You knew my path. In the way where I walk they have hidden a trap for me. Psalm 142:3 NASB
Overwhelmed – The biblical idea of a heart attack is slightly different than our medical definition. A heart attack in Hebrew thought is the consciousness of separation from God. To be overwhelmed (‘ataph) is to feel divine absence, to be truly alone in the world. The word is often translated “feeble” or “exhausted” when it is applied to the world, but when it comes to the inner man, it describes that agonizing feeling of isolation. This is the world where no one really knows you; where your inner strife convinces you that if anyone else knew your darkest secrets, you would be rejected as unworthy of love. This is an attack on the heart, and as far as the Bible is concerned, this is the only real heart attack we have to be ultimately concerned about.
Isolation is the antonym of love. We often think the opposite of love is hate, but this isn’t true. Hate is a word of action, a fervent intensity that has both positive and negative application. David can write, “I hate those who oppose You, Lord,” and we do not consider his statement evil. He is expressing impassioned concern for the reputation of YHVH. Of course, hate can also be found in words like hamas (violence). Hate can cut both ways. For this reason, hate is ambivalent. Isolation is not. Isolation is that experience of being unworthy, of having no value, of knowing that who you really are under the surface pretense is unacceptable to you and to others. Isolation is the world of addictive medication, the place where there is nothing left except the pain that must be silenced. Isolation is a world without compassion, care or concern. It is the heart attack of being completely alone.
Isolation is not solitude. There is a deeply spiritual quality of solitude, a place of quiet repose in the presence of YHVH. Alone with the Master is a wonderful experience, far too rare in the noise of our pedestrian living. Solitude is harmony with His creation. Isolation is the absence of connection, the last step before extinction, the harbinger of death. To love is to be in harmony with the universe. Experiencing isolation is just the opposite. To be isolated is to not belong, to not be at home. A stranger in a strange and foreboding land. To be absent from others, from God and from myself.
Heart attacks are isolating events. Suddenly you are cast into a place where there is no exit, no retreat, no bond. The world caves in on you and you are left in the dark. Alone. When David says that his breath (life) hit’attep (feints), he cries that there is no way out for him. Only YHVH knows that path. And without YHVH, he will die here, in this dark place, alone. Perhaps you have been there too, in that place where no one knows you, where there is no way out without revealing the things that kept you isolated and afraid. Perhaps your life is under attack from some inner demon, constructed by a lifetime of medicating fear. And now there is no place else to go. Now you feel the breath of your life escaping and death, spiritual or physical, is right there, staring you in the face.
“You, Lord, know my path. I don’t. I don’t see a way, any way. I can’t go back. I don’t know how to go forward. But You do. Help me!”
Topical Index: ‘atap, be feeble, grow weak, feint, heart attack, isolation, Psalm 142:3
According to medical literature, isolation is listed as one of the major factors leading up to a physical heart attack, too. In fact, that “feeling overwhelmed” can produce Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy, or, Broken Heart Syndrome in a perfectly healthy heart. Look it up in Wikipedia. This is nephesh reality. I think it is grace that holds the majority of the planet alive in their profound isolation as it is! Hearts were not designed to continue to beat long in the place of fracture from everything. There is real death in that fracture. Community is a necessity for life.
You Lord know my path and my heart, I can’t go back I can’t go back, can’t go forward please Lord help me! To move on as you know how, but I have to do something about that request too I must pray and ask sincerely for his guidance & grace to move on with no fear
An amazing thing happened when I returned to the States after visiting Israel for the first time. I was comforted, of course, in returning to family and the familiarity of my home surroundings, my ‘stuff,’ my turf. My community is somewhat smaller than it has been years past. I have come out of some things I was vested in for many years. There was a degree of lonliness that resulted. Many have shared similar instances on this blog in this regard.
I brought something back from Israel. This is the amazing thing. I somehow brought back a taste, a flavor, a piece of community that I have never really experienced before. I brought back the tinest speck of a national community given me by the people of Israel that I brushed shoulders with. It is difficult to explain, but, nonethless, tangible within me. I haven’t quite figured it out completely yet, but I know it is something that resonates within me more now than before.
Even in the melting pot scenario of Israel, I sensed, felt and experienced the community mindset that had a multitude of flavors, reflections and expressions. It is still captivating remembering the young soldiers, male and female, sporting their deadly firearms across their shoulders while arm in arm dancing on Shabat at the Wall with their fellow Israelies. They were happy, radiant, thankful and sharing their common place in the center of old Jerusalem. It was a big, big “thing” comprising many individual chosen people focused around one thing. They had their eyes on their souce of life, their well spring of living water, their Father.
I am here now. But somehow, because of one short trip rubbing shoulders with a people who are loved, protected, guarded and guided by the lover of the universe, I am less alone. This physical distance is as far as my memory. A memory that allows me to remember the life I witnessed in a people. Because I have seen them loved and remain in the promises made by the One who keeps his word, I am less alone. My security in him loving me is thoroughly enforced. I have seen what their Father has, is and will do for them. Therefore, I am secure in that he will do it for me and remain along side me all the days of my life.
Emet.