Conversation with Craig Westhoff

Reflective Meditation

Find a quiet space where you can sit or stand in stillness. Let your body come to rest and your heart become honest.

Acknowledge the Ache


Close your eyes and bring to mind the place where you feel loss or injustice most deeply today.
Say quietly or in your heart:
"This hurts. This is broken. I feel the ache of what was meant to be beautiful."

Asking the Sacred “Why”


Let your body express the question, whatever posture it needs.

Say out loud, or in your spirit:
“Why?”

Let your voice rise if it needs to. Let your hands tremble if they will.
Let “Why?” move through your body—not as demand, but as release.

Repeat if needed.
“Why?”
“Why?”

Let it be breath. Let it be prayer. Let it be felt.

Closing

End with this final posture:
Hands over your heart.
Breath slow and steady.
Body at rest.

Say:
“This grief is holy.”
“This prayer is enough.”
“Amen.”


Reflective Spoken Word

We were made to feel.
Not just a little.
Not just the polite or the palatable.
But the full flood of it—
the ache and the wonder,
the holy anger,
the sacred sorrow,
the joy that splits open the sky.

This is not our depravity.
It is our capacity.
To feel deeply is not a flaw to fix—
it is the fingerprint of God on our soul.

We are image-bearers with nervous systems.
Hearts that hold fire.
Guts that know when something isn’t right.
Skin that remembers what touch meant,
Eyes that weep when the world breaks open.

The prophets knew this.
Isaiah, undone by a vision.
Jeremiah, weeping in the ruins.
Ezekiel, lying on his side for months,
bearing the weight of a word no one wanted.
They didn’t numb out.
They didn’t shut down.
They felt.
And they stayed present in it.
Because the message wasn’t just on their lips—
It lived in their bones.

They wailed.
They trembled.
They questioned.
They ached.
They screamed “How long, O Lord?”
And God did not shame their questions.
He folded them into His own.

We were never meant to float above the pain.
We were made to walk through it—
with our feet dusty,
our hearts open,
and our tears like oil on holy ground.

So today—
We do not turn away.
We do not rush past the ache.
We do not shame the storm inside.

We breathe.
We feel.
We let the tears fall if they must.
We ask why, and we let it echo.

Because this body is not an obstacle to the Spirit—
it is the temple.
And this heart is not too much—
it is the meeting place.

Prophets still weep.
And God still listens.
We are not broken for feeling too much.
We are breaking open into the kind of love
that refuses to look away.


Journal

Write out your emotions, thoughts, and process in a non-judgmental posture, by responding to the above spoken word or what you can name as a loss in this season.