Dear God, it's foggy!

Did you know that Zelie Martin yelled at her daughter, Marie, at least once? The mother of St. Therese of Lisieux tells the story in a letter to her sister, a Visitation nun. Zelie was in great pain from her breast cancer and Marie told her, "Mama! Don't make that face, it's worrying auntie!" Zelie snapped back, "Well, I'm doing the best I can!"

She regretted it.

In that same letter, she writes of how irritable she has become in her final illness, of her anxiety for her children who will soon be orphaned, and of their financial woes.

Her life had become for her a fog and darkness.

Sounds familiar. When I was in the throes of postpartum depression and anxiety last year, everything was a fog. I still, when the stressors of life pile up too quickly, fall back into that fog and dim twilight. Sometimes it's my own fault--I haven't slept enough or I've scheduled too many evenings out. Sometimes it can't be helped--the kids are sick, the Scientist Dad has a good 60 hours of work for a week, and the babysitter cancels. The past few weeks have been a whirl of activities--all joyful and good--and a fog of exhaustion.

And in that fog, the ugliest parts of me emerge. I snip at the Scientist Dad or my in-laws. I lose my temper and yell at the 4-year-old. I simply cannot fold another piece of laundry, even though the living room has been covered in wrinkled t-shirts for three days.

Then, it lifts.

The rain comes, Divine Mercy flooding my soul. In three days, I can get out, go to Confession, talk with a close friend, spend time with my husband, and the kids all nap at the same time. The fog clears, I look back, and what seemed like weeks of anger and frustration are transformed.

The hardest times are the most beautiful, when they're over. We can see, if we can't articulate, the presence of God.

I look back at the depression now and recognize that Todd and I came through it by no strength of our own: we were so totally brought low that we had no power. And when we had no power, all power was Christ. He came to us in our families, our friends, perfect strangers, and the sacraments. The extraordinary graces of our vows somehow carried us. And here we are. More humble. Older. Quieter. Happier.

This little bit of foggy weather in my heart was a little reminder of what men live by. And we do not live by bread alone.

Amen.

Delighting and grieving.

"The Lord delights in those who revere him

In those who wait for his love." ~Psalm 147:11

The days have been short and the nights long. The waiting for Christmas was interrupted this year: my Uncle Billy died suddenly last Thursday night. The family is so close, and that makes it both easier and harder all at once.

We've all been feeling as though it will be "always winter and never Christmas."

This morning, the Office was perfect. The perfect pattern of prayer.

Psalm 143--the song of those in distress: "Lord, listen to my prayer..."

Isaiah 66-- the quieting of the crying child: "Oh, that you may suck fully of the milk of her comfort!"

Psalm 147--"He binds up all their wounds..."

And then 147 ends with that oddity: "The Lord delights in those who revere him

In those who wait for his love."

Grief and fatigue leave me--from a human perspective--anything but delightful. If death is the end of all things, there is no more delight in a person. Memories may bring a smile or some comfort, but only with the thought that "things will never be the same."

But the Office, after allowing us to rail at God and weep, after promising to quiet us like a mother quiets her screaming infant, tells us that "the Lord delights in those who revere him."

One of the great blessings of the funeral home was that its men walk the mourners through every step. They let you grieve, but also help you move through the necessary motions. They tell you what to do so that you can survive those first few days.

In a similar way, that last Psalm tells the grieving soul what it must do: First, praise the Lord, for he is good. His wisdom can never be measured. Consider his creation. The mountains are covered in clouds, the ravens cry to him for their bread.

And then, sad soul, know this: The Lord delights in you.

The soul must know--must contemplate--this. She, who praises God in her grief, is a joy. God's infinite love is entirely directed toward her, and her praise opens her sad heart to receive this knowledge. "The Lord delights in those who revere him." Only those who revere him can know this.

So, once again, the Divine Office walks us through our days. We know it will not always be winter. We know Christmas will come, and that the Final Day will come, as well. Then we will see clearly, as my uncle sees now, the face of God who delights in us.

Save me, Lord.

Today I remember, with the whole western lung of the Church, one of my Top 5 Gals: St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein): She wrote against Heidegger's claim that human life is an anxiety-ridden hurdling toward death. He made the case that the only "rational human attitude" is "a passionate ... consciously resolute and anxiety-stricken freedom toward death."

To which she replied: "By no means. The undeniable fact that my being is limited in its transience from moment to moment and thus exposed to the possibility of nothingness is counterbalanced by the equally undeniable fact that despite this transience, I a, that from moment to moment I am sustained in my being, and that in my fleeting being I share in [eternal] being. In the knowledge that being holds me, I rest securely. This security, however, is not the self-assurance of one who under her own power stands on firm ground, but rather the sweet and blissful security of a child that is lifted up and carried by a strong arm. And, objectively speaking, this kind of security is not less rational. For if a child were living in the constant fear that its mother might let it fall, we should hardly call this a rational attitude."

This reminds me (finally!) of that post I meant to write, based on a homily I heard this past weekend. That day was a darker day: I sat in a soaring, neo-Gothic church in old New Haven, cradling a sweet, sleepy Bella on my lap, lamenting my sins, nursing my grudges, and fighting back the latest anxiety attack and bout of depression. Rain fell gently outside, but my heart felt more like a hurricane. It seemed that all the water I'd been treading was covering my head again.

Then the priest climbed the high steps to read us the story of St. Peter's own walk on the storming waters of the Sea of Galilee. He saw Jesus walking toward the boat in which he and the other apostles were fighting the wind and waves. In a fit of love, zeal, and passion, he cried: "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water!"

"Come."

Peter stepped with bravado out of that little boat, the brave saint among the cowering and sinful band of brothers. In that moment, surely he felt so confident and unafraid.

But then, life happened.

The winds and the rain, the waves--the storm overwhelmed him. He could not go on. He knew he was going to die, and he sank. "Lord, save me!" Jesus said, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" And he helped the sinking leader of the Church back into that beleaguered little boat.

This is the parable of every life: we begin with a fervent promise, our Jesus Prayer, "Lord, whatever you want me to do, I will do it!"

"Lord, I would gladly give my life for you!" (Peter himself says this later, too, before he falls so grievously on Good Friday.)

I remember those moments: the heady days of intense silent prayer, daily Adoration, daily Mass, the thrilling discovery of John Paul II's theology, the life-long commitments made in the madness of youth. And there was nothing insincere about them. We--all of us--meant it: we converted, we we threw out our birth control, we kept our vows, we quit that high-paying career path, we decided to tithe more than we could "afford," we humbled ourselves and begged forgiveness from those we hurt; we swallowed all insults and responded in love. And it was good, because we were following the very words of God himself.

What we did not realize in those first flushes of sanctity--and what no one could have prepared us for--was that, when we follow Christ, death is not a distant possibility. It is a certainty.

(Thank you, dear Dominican priest!)

When we did realize that our brave choice was costing us our lives, we faltered. Life happened. We suffered for those choices. Our humility was repaid with more insults. Our openness to life was repaid with heartbreak at the death of our children. Our fidelity was repaid with infidelity. Our sacrifice was mocked. We sank and cried for help.

Life did not feel like sanctity anymore. It felt like failure. Surely, we thought, we deserved condemnation. O me of little faith.

Todd asked me, "When you read that story, do you think Jesus was angry with Peter?"

No. I have never thought that. It sounds more like a parent's gentle chiding, "Why didn't you trust me? Here I am." And Peter accepted that reassurance. He took Christ's hand and got back in the boat.

But, the father reminded us, we don't stay in the boat anymore than we stay with the initial feeling of zeal. We get out of that boat again and again. We sink over and over again. And over and over, we hear that gentle reproach, "Why did you fear? I am with you."

I would step out into the storm a million times to hear that voice every day. I know that voice: I have heard it in the darkest moments, at the point where I just want it all to end. Why does he visit us only in those moments? No, he is always there--after all, he was the one who called us to walk on water (impossible) in the first place. He watched our first, confident steps; he saw our sinking.

It was only when I sank that I wanted to hear him again, that I knew my limitless need. And his eternal mercy.

So, like Edith Stein, I want to respond to all the false bravado of our age. It is not in ridding ourselves of anxiety by our own firm resoluteness. It is in being held, like a child, that we can bear the transience of life, the endless changes, the suffering.

Save me, Lord.

Today I remember, with the whole western lung of the Church, one of my Top 5 Gals: St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein): She wrote against Heidegger's claim that human life is an anxiety-ridden hurdling toward death. He made the case that the only "rational human attitude" is "a passionate ... consciously resolute and anxiety-stricken freedom toward death."

To which she replied: "By no means. The undeniable fact that my being is limited in its transience from moment to moment and thus exposed to the possibility of nothingness is counterbalanced by the equally undeniable fact that despite this transience, I a, that from moment to moment I am sustained in my being, and that in my fleeting being I share in [eternal] being. In the knowledge that being holds me, I rest securely. This security, however, is not the self-assurance of one who under her own power stands on firm ground, but rather the sweet and blissful security of a child that is lifted up and carried by a strong arm. And, objectively speaking, this kind of security is not less rational. For if a child were living in the constant fear that its mother might let it fall, we should hardly call this a rational attitude."

This reminds me (finally!) of that post I meant to write, based on a homily I heard this past weekend. That day was a darker day: I sat in a soaring, neo-Gothic church in old New Haven, cradling a sweet, sleepy Bella on my lap, lamenting my sins, nursing my grudges, and fighting back the latest anxiety attack and bout of depression. Rain fell gently outside, but my heart felt more like a hurricane. It seemed that all the water I'd been treading was covering my head again.

Then the priest climbed the high steps to read us the story of St. Peter's own walk on the storming waters of the Sea of Galilee. He saw Jesus walking toward the boat in which he and the other apostles were fighting the wind and waves. In a fit of love, zeal, and passion, he cried: "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water!"

"Come."

Peter stepped with bravado out of that little boat, the brave saint among the cowering and sinful band of brothers. In that moment, surely he felt so confident and unafraid.

But then, life happened.

The winds and the rain, the waves--the storm overwhelmed him. He could not go on. He knew he was going to die, and he sank. "Lord, save me!" Jesus said, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" And he helped the sinking leader of the Church back into that beleaguered little boat.

This is the parable of every life: we begin with a fervent promise, our Jesus Prayer, "Lord, whatever you want me to do, I will do it!"

"Lord, I would gladly give my life for you!" (Peter himself says this later, too, before he falls so grievously on Good Friday.)

I remember those moments: the heady days of intense silent prayer, daily Adoration, daily Mass, the thrilling discovery of John Paul II's theology, the life-long commitments made in the madness of youth. And there was nothing insincere about them. We--all of us--meant it: we converted, we we threw out our birth control, we kept our vows, we quit that high-paying career path, we decided to tithe more than we could "afford," we humbled ourselves and begged forgiveness from those we hurt; we swallowed all insults and responded in love. And it was good, because we were following the very words of God himself.

What we did not realize in those first flushes of sanctity--and what no one could have prepared us for--was that, when we follow Christ, death is not a distant possibility. It is a certainty.

(Thank you, dear Dominican priest!)

When we did realize that our brave choice was costing us our lives, we faltered. Life happened. We suffered for those choices. Our humility was repaid with more insults. Our openness to life was repaid with heartbreak at the death of our children. Our fidelity was repaid with infidelity. Our sacrifice was mocked. We sank and cried for help.

Life did not feel like sanctity anymore. It felt like failure. Surely, we thought, we deserved condemnation. O me of little faith.

Todd asked me, "When you read that story, do you think Jesus was angry with Peter?"

No. I have never thought that. It sounds more like a parent's gentle chiding, "Why didn't you trust me? Here I am." And Peter accepted that reassurance. He took Christ's hand and got back in the boat.

But, the father reminded us, we don't stay in the boat anymore than we stay with the initial feeling of zeal. We get out of that boat again and again. We sink over and over again. And over and over, we hear that gentle reproach, "Why did you fear? I am with you."

I would step out into the storm a million times to hear that voice every day. I know that voice: I have heard it in the darkest moments, at the point where I just want it all to end. Why does he visit us only in those moments? No, he is always there--after all, he was the one who called us to walk on water (impossible) in the first place. He watched our first, confident steps; he saw our sinking.

It was only when I sank that I wanted to hear him again, that I knew my limitless need. And his eternal mercy.

So, like Edith Stein, I want to respond to all the false bravado of our age. It is not in ridding ourselves of anxiety by our own firm resoluteness. It is in being held, like a child, that we can bear the transience of life, the endless changes, the suffering.

Myself and not myself: Bringing back skepticism.

The postpartum depression diagnosis introduced me to the world of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. I went, curious but reluctant. I associate psychology with Freud and Jung, not bad men, but perhaps superficial men.

On the other hand, I know self-knowledge has always been an important part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. If we do not know our true condition, how can we undergo that transformation, that metanoia, from misery into joy? So much of our human suffering is rooted in isolation: from others, from creation, and from ourselves. Redemption begins when the divine life bridges those chasms between us: knowledge and love of all that the Father has created makes us at once more like God in his knowing and in his joy. Depression healed.

And so, I began the sessions with a secular psychologist with a mixture of apprehension and hope. At that point in my struggle, my basic instinct was, "Why the heck not? Self-knowledge tells me: I need help!" I had no idea what to expect or what that help would look like.

The beginning sessions were familiar: Know thyself.

Naming my demons (only figurative demons; she is, after all, a secular psychologist!) was the order of the day. Anger, envy, self-hatred... We examined various situations I found myself in, and I tried to uncover hidden emotions or "narratives" that were expressing themselves in depressive thoughts and behaviors.

All good. It was even fun to spend an hour every week just examining my conscience, even if the doctor couldn't absolve my sins.

But then.

I began to notice that we were hitting a wall. Every time I would regale her with a story of angry feelings, she would listen and say, "Good for you!" I would mention that I told my husband I felt angry: "Good for you!" Hidden anger was bad. Expressing my anger was good, she explained, because I would name it for what it was. It would no longer have the power to depress me or manifest itself in chronic pain.

Then she counseled me: "You need to tell Todd (or person x, y, or zed) that you feel angry. Don't try to explain it or fix it. Just tell him and ask him to know your anger with you. Be transparent."

"I don't want to always be angry," I said. "I hope to someday receive all these stresses of life with more grace. More graciously."

She smiled and fretted, "Oh, dear."

The message was: This anger is your self. Receive yourself. Express yourself. Do not allow anyone or any religion or any code to suggest that your experience of yourself is untrue or deficient. It is what it is. Be. Any attempt to transform yourself will mean more pain, more depression.

Again, this all sounded vaguely familiar. There is that strain in Christian thought, too: God accepts us as we are. We come to him broken, and he sees our brokenness and has mercy.

She, "Have mercy on yourself, just like you believe God has mercy on you."

My self. My experience. My truth.

So, I bit the apple. I took that fruit and ate it.

It was death. Not to be too dramatic here, but that self-affirmation almost literally the death of all love. Once I started down that path of "express your anger," "receive all your emotions as gifts," I felt great. It felt good to just let it all out, like a 3-year-old at the end of a long grocery trip. "You make me feel trapped! I feel rage! Don't take this personally, it's not your fault, but dammit am I angry with you!"

That is not love.

You see, I began to notice that the "truth of my experience" was that I expressed my feelings and let it all just hang out precisely when love called for discretion. The truth of my experience was that I stayed silent and failed to express joy exactly at those moments when charity demanded I speak. The truth of my experience of self is that myself is unreliable, weak, and destructive. Left to myself, everything I touch will turn sour, because I touch with both love and hate, joy and anger, healing and cruelty.

Because myself is fallen. That is the truth of myself. My sweet, lovable, sister Ass self --and I do love myself, both with a perverse and a true love-- is in desperate need of more than herself.

I returned to the psychologist's office one last time before we moved away forever.

I gave her a biography of Teresa of Avila, who knew both light and darkness and chose the light. And I said, "I believe suffering is an essential part of the human condition. I cannot escape it."

"Good," she smiled.

"And I believe I can be changed. I can in future receive suffering more graciously because of the life that is in me."

"Oh, dear," she fretted and shook her head. We parted in disagreement. I'm sure she's expecting to land right back on another leather couch within months. I may. I may not.

I do not believe those hours on her couch (yes! I actually sat on a leather couch!) were wasted. In fact, in a sense I found myself. But instead of naming myself holy, I named myself wretched. Along with acceptance of my wretchedness, I rediscovered my true and unfailing hope. The fulfillment of hope is not in me, but in something outside of myself.

How is it that any therapy --without reference to repentance or transformation-- could touch and heal the effects of that original wound in my soul?

I reject the idea that myself is immutable, unchanging, something I can abase only at my peril. I am more than pop-psychology can affirm; the psychologist has no idea how fearfully and wonderfully I am made. I turn instead to the Author of myself, who is not myself. He is greater. He is the awful, awesome, loving Father, who alone is perfect and who alone is holy. The eternal Word, the Logos, the Crucified One who lives and through whom all things have their being. The Paracletus, the Comforter, and Spirit. The three in one and one in three.

I reject self-actualization in favor of being a creature. I'd much rather my being be written by him --a God like the God of the Scriptures-- than by me. A healthy self-skepticism alone allows me to freely--and without any fear--submit once again to his healing touch.

A self-skeptic's Bibliography:

Frederica Matthews-Green, "Self and Skepticism" podcast

Peggy Noonan, John Paul the Great

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers

Blaise Pascal, The Pensees

Different Kinds of Happy.

The Anchoress is talking about happiness today and suggests, "The question can be deceptive; it seems simple, but becomes complicated when one is forced to consider it, head-on."

She has some great 1968 video of habited nuns walking around asking the random man-on-the-street (and woman, too) if he is happy and why.

It got me thinking, "Am I happy?"

Surprisingly, I have no hesitation in saying, "Yes. I am so happy." There is, as PG Wodehouse would say, a concatenation of circumstances in my life right now that should add up to marked unhappiness: chronic pain, financial stress, postpartum depression, side effects from medication, and on and on.

When I think about happiness, however, I can only say, "I am happy." So happy. How can this be? I think the answer, as the Anchoress also says, lies in gratitude. The list of woes fades rapidly in the face of my list of blessings. I almost giggle when I ponder how wonderful my life is.

Little joys and pleasures have become more acute: bulbs forcing their way through the earth. Warm fire. Colors seem more vivid. Comfort. Beautiful words strung together. A friend's encouragement. A brother's concern.

There is, of course, the children. They are a lot of work. I probably wouldn't be in all this pain without them. But I would be so poor without their presence and their needs and their gifts to me.

Then there is the Scientist Dad. There is so little left to hide from each other (although, in 15 years, God willing, I'll probably look back and see how far we've come). We've seen each other's darkest, each other's brightest. He bears my cross with me. And I hope I bear his with him. Sickness has made our marriage more real: The vows have been tested, are being tested. And they are our life.

And finally there is hope, which does not disappoint. I have hope of recovery, but I also have hope that nothing is lost. There is not a moment in my life that has been wasted or frittered--although I have tried my hardest to fritter! The time is flying by so quickly, and it is full. I am convinced that everything is accounted. All faults are forgiven and, like my tears, are nothing. All joys and good works are stored away for the Day of Rejoicing.

A life lived under Mercy is a happy life. I would not trade it for all the world.

Things that help.

As we move farther into Lent, I continue to battle the postpartum junk. We adjust prescription dosages, continue on the physical therapy, find friends, and deal with the curve-balls (insurance terror! job searches! the car died! Ana ate a penny!). I have almost no emotional reserves, but nevertheless, as Matis Yahu says, "We got life!"

Speaking of Jewish rappers, I've been compiling a list of things that help with the depression, pain, and irritability. At times, I want a cure (yes, a pill would be great), but I can also accept "daily bread," as in, "give us this day our daily bread."

1. St. Simon the Cyrene. He carried Christ's cross:

"Simon wondered, as he took those beams upon his shoulders, why he was chosen for such a heavy burden, and now he knows. Help me, Jesus, to trust Your loving Providence as you permit suffering to weave itself in and out of my life. Make me understand that You looked at it and held it fondly before You passed it on to me. You watch me and give me strength, just as You did Simon. When I enter Your Kingdom, I shall know, as he knows, what marvels Your Cross has wrought in my soul." ~Mother Angelica.

This quote came in our EWTN monthly flyer. I have no idea where she wrote it or when, but yes. Thank you, Simon.

2. Finding more Simons. How many people I have carrying my cross with me! My husband, my parents, his parents, and my children. At first, I was sick with fear that my cross would crush them. But God has made them Simons (now, if I could just be more like the fallen Christ...).

3. Arise from Darkness, by Fr. Benedict Groeschel. My mom sent this book as a gift, and what a gift. This is a book for those in the dark, those caring for those in the dark, those afraid of the coming dark. He's real, he's a straight talker: "This book is not an answer but a guide to those in darkness. It is about going on in spite of darkness, about survival, and about using the unavoidable dark times of life to grow."

4. The wicked thief. You know, not Dismas. Yes, I've been feeling a lot like the wicked thief next to Christ on the Cross, "If you were really the Son of God, save me!" I love him, because now I have been him. And his words point right to Dismas's words, "Lord Jesus, remember me." During the day, it's always a toss-up which thief I'll be echoing. I'm just praying that my last prayer is Dismas's.

5. Company. I have been amazed at the company I keep: Thank you to everyone who has shared his or her own story of depression and/or chronic pain. This has been by far the greatest blessing--we are not alone.

6. Forgiveness. I've had to ask a lot of forgiveness lately. And dear friends have readily granted it.

7. Hot beverage break! Tea. Coffee. Hot milk. This is a physical ailment, and I thank God for physical consolations!

There are so many little things and thoughts that come during the day. Good things. Promises of Easter.

A road I know not.

I've been struggling with this post for a long time. How much can I talk about suffering without whining or complaining? How can I describe pain without fishing for pity? And this space has become something I never imagined it would be: So much about wounds, so little about philosophy.

But pain is a good school for the philosophical. If Caryll is right, only the sick are really living. And if Plato is right, then philosophers "are doing no more nor less than to prepare themselves for the moment of dying." In our dying we are coming to life: philosophy.

As the back issues have started to lift, we've faced the reality that underneath the physical pain I have a robust case of postpartum depression, coupled with severe sleep trauma. Even though the baby is sleeping well now, I can't. And in those dark hours, as all moms know, dark thoughts tend to crowd in.

It's hard for an introvert, who lives in her head, to recognize that there's really something physically wrong in her brain. I've always articulated worthwhile, meaningful pain and suffering in terms of the soul. Feelings of being alone or depressed were, I assumed, spiritual problems. Either I needed some absolution or to kick a sinful habit.

Or maybe I was heading down that holiest of paths, the "dark night of the soul." I must getting holy! Like Mother Teresa holy. And St. Therese and Father Damian holy. They were so holy that they suffered spiritually. They weren't clinically depressed, I thought, because they were obviously so close to God. They didn't have Zoloft, but they didn't need Zoloft! They had real faith.

But it turns out that, in the recesses of my mothering brain, some tiny little cells called neurons are misfiring, or not firing at all. A friend who is also struggling with depression said, "It's actually just physical!"

Is it? Is this kind of suffering also "just physical"? Can it go away with the right pill? How does that fit in with the "dark night of the soul"? Is there anything more, more meaningful, to psychological brokenness?

I'm convinced that no suffering--and no joy--is "just physical" or "spiritual" or "psychological" or "emotional." Human beings are never just physical, just spiritual, just psychology, or just emotions. We think we can isolate our experiences into various categories--it is so practical to categorize in order to control and manipulate. But when we fracture ourselves in order to understand ourselves, in order to heal ourselves, then we lose ourselves. And we end up only more broken. The back pain may lift with enough Aleve and a perfect posture, but if I think I have escaped unscathed, I am wrong. The depression may vanish with enough psychobabble and sertraline, but there are other consequences with which I must contend.

Along with far-reaching consequences of one sort of suffering--say, depression--there are also great opportunities. The spiritual war being waged in my soul, the battle for physical health, and the humiliation of psychological depression--in all these things, I may become more than a conqueror. In them, God might lead me in a "way I know not," until all that I am finds healing. Not just my back. Not just my brain. Not just, even, my soul. The total devastation of the Cross might one day become the total victory of the Resurrection.

And so, depression is not just a problem with my serotonin. It's not even a setback. It can become a way, a way through a dark night, to the place I long to be.

The difference.

"O my Guiding Star, the fair light of faith enlightens me to see Thee. What does it matter if I feel or do not feel, if I am in the light or the darkness, if I enjoy or do not enjoy. Only let me so fix my gaze on Thee, that I may never wander from Thy light." ~St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, from God Alone and I

A dear friend, a non-believer, wonders what the point of faith is. We struggle with depression, pain, sleep. Both of our brains are lacking this hormone, elevated levels of that neurotransmitter. We both require daily help, multiple doctors, the same medications.

And we are both committed to our children, our husbands, a beautiful home. In fact, she more so than I can resist irritability and reach out to others.

Why bother with God?

If he was such a loving Father, wouldn't I suffer less than she suffers?

If he was a Healer, wouldn't I somehow have special access to relief?

If I truly believed in the power of the Cross, wouldn't my cross be somehow lighter?

These are good questions, and I don't know the answers this side of the Jordan.

Is there any difference when it comes to postpartum junk whether you have faith or not?

Yes. But the difference is certainly not in the degree of suffering. Knowing Christ does not mean suffering less. For some time, I would have answered that knowing Christ at least gives some mental comfort: You know there's a purpose to all this. You know that He suffered more, so that makes it easier. But some kinds of suffering don't care about the purpose. Screw the purpose. Some days, I'd rather be purposeless, meaningless, and pain-free.

The Father's answer to suffering wasn't to fix it. He could have simply changed us, ended all pain, provided universal healthcare and a decent education. He could have raised up the husband of every widow.

But what he did was different: He simply came and suffered with us. He died with us.

And then he rose again.

"O grave, where is thy victory? O, death, where is thy sting?"

He had the final word. He will have the final word in me. Some pain grabs at your faith and tries to erase it: spiritual warfare. And then I learn, so slowly and painfully, that even my conviction is not my own doing. It is only Him with me, in me. He didn't take away my pain; He is in it.

So, my dear friend, we will seem just the same from the outside. And we will both come through this time of darkness. We will have the same pain, the same struggle, the same doctors visits and medications. And for all I know, the same outcome. The gift of faith is simply that I know we will not only find an end to pain, but a beginning of new and eternal life. And that Life has already begun within us, for we. are. not. alone.