I had such high hopes. Nothing on the agenda. One last cold front from the North blowing through. Maybe even some rain. And a stack of t-shirts as high as my imagination. What could go wrong? Life evidently. Reminders of reality. And now the cold, drizzly outside seems downright pleasant compared to the storm inside me. You never plan for these things, and it's not as if some crisis struck. Except a sweet friend losing her baby at 25 weeks and having to deliver her stillborn dreams the very next day. And all the memories of my own miscarriage resurfacing with a vengeance. And a lousy night's sleep filled with dread and empty longing. And John waking up with A Fib (atrial fibrillation, i.e. arrhythmia, irregular heartbeat: not immediately life threatening but an ominous enough harbinger, especially when the medicine won't seem to do its job and and make things work right again). And my mom who's in the hospital again. And Soren getting sick in the evening. And the nagging reminder that Oh yes! Things can get worse. Much worse. And maybe I was naive to think we were getting a break from the struggle for a bit. This is the kind of darkness that laughs in the face of my usual attempts at distraction and the counting of blessings. The color around me has dulled--no, worse than that. It is as bright as it has always been and yet is completely meaningless. Barren. Absurd. Vapid. Impotent of any real hope to cling to.
So I pray. Not with words. I don't have any. With the aching in my heart and the tears that won't flow and a shrill sound deep inside, "pleasegodnopleasegodnopleasegodnopleasegodnopleasepleasepleasegodplease..." but with syllables indistinguishable, tumbling on top of one another, fighting to be heard and scared of their own voice at the same time. So I gather my books. John takes the kids and the silence helps and sitting here giving it a name helps. And I might go get lunch. What else can I do?
When I go through this and I'm tempted to blame God, and even after I sometimes do blame him, what I always remember are the words of the apostle Peter. It was nearing the end of Jesus' ministry and the tide was turning against him. Those who worshiped at his feet the day before were now long gone and he turned to his closest friends asking, "Will you be leaving now, too?" It seems reasonable to ask. And I don't think Peter's answer must have been all that satisfying to Jesus knowing as he did that the worst was yet to come. What Peter said was something like, "But where would we go? If there is one thing we have learned in all of this, it is that there is nowhere else for us now. After what we have seen, after how you have changed us--where in the world could we go from here?? Nowhere else exists for us. With you there may be confusion, fear, loss and even immanent death but you alone have the words of life. We know that now. There is no where else for us and there never will be again." It's not as if they didn't want to run too, I think. And later they would try. But, really, run where? Life and meaning and truth and everything worth anything was with Jesus. And if sorrow came along with him, well, then it was a package deal. And better than what they could find anywhere else. Better than the very best the rest of the world would ever have to offer. And that's where I always seem to find myself.
So, after praying and reading and writing and soaking up some silence, I do feel better. I'm not better, but I feel better and I'll take what I can get. I might be able to pick up something I worked on eagerly a few days ago and let it distract me for a while; maybe it won't feel so hollow this time. I won't go back to bed, I know. And that's a good thing.
Soon, the pictures will return. And the color, the inspiration, and the passion. Because if we walked around all our days fully aware of the fragility of life and the loss that could be ours in the very next instant, who'd ever get out of bed? A merciful God allows us to be distracted, even refreshed, with some very good things in our journey, as long as we don't mistake them for home. And right now I am very thankful for the distraction.
