This morning was the worst day for me yet. Maybe it seem apropos that one day this week was the best I’ve had and this day was the worst. Or maybe they came from two different but equally important realizations.
I dropped Julia at school again this morning which provides a perfect early morning opportunity to visit the cemetery. There I was meditating about grief. I realized that not only was overcoming my grief about healing my heart but God is also tasking me with overcoming my fear of loneliness, something that has plagued me my whole life.
It then occurred to me that I must seek Him and only Him and learn to be comfortable being alone with God. While that is a wonderful breakthrough mentally, emotionally I was an open wound and the pain and loneliness came crashing down on me. I felt very alone. I thought that no one understands me now that Anita is gone (except God). I do not yet have that comfort being alone with God, but I felt like I could not turn to anyone but Him. It was the bottom, the lowest moment when God strips away all things that you depend on so that you MUST depend on Him. I had seen Anita hit this point before a couple of times, but don’t think I ever have truly myself.
Then I saw soemthing Anita had put on the wall of our bedroom.
“If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him….when the anaesthetic fog which we call ‘nature’ or ‘the real world’ fades away and the Presence in which you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, and unavoidable….”
– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity at p. 217“…and the idols will totally disappear.”
– Isaiah 2:18
I have meditated on the Lewis quote many times but never had fully internalized it. Being alone with God is not an easy concept to grasp. So I looked up that page in Mere Christianity and read the entire passage.
What can you ever really know of other people’s souls — of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole creation you do know; and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him. You cannot put Him off with speculations about your next door neighbours or memories of what you have read in books. What will all that chatter and hearsay count (will you even be able to remember it?) when the anaesthetic fog which we call ‘nature’ or ‘the real world’ fades away and the Presence in which you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, and unavoidable?
And that was the point of revelation, as if the lens through which I always saw everything was broken and I saw everything without a lens, raw – and God was next to me. (Note: this is a metaphor, I did not actually “see” God, just the truth was revealed to me.)
I screamed and wailed uncontrollably. My strength left me. I wept. I wept for my pain and my fear and then I prayed and screamed some more. I wanted to immediately be comfortable being alone with God. But it is a process and not a short one I daresay. So my immediate pains and fears could not be quelled. I will come out stronger on the other side of the suffering, but that knowledge does not make the suffering any less painful!
I found a book of Anita’s (God is Closer Than You Think) that referenced another book of hers, The Sacrament of the Present Moment by Jean-Pierre de Caussade. This I think could help me, if I could read it. But I could not yet.
After five hours of suffering, my energy was gone. I laid on the floor, a puddle of myself. I received a couple of encouraging emails and a text message from friends. I dozed until I could pick myself off the floor, forced myself to eat and drink. Another friend called and snapped me out of my stupor.
So I came back to the Sacrament of the Present Moment, and Anita had left a note to herself in there.
10/02/03
- Do not question the trials God lays before you, because his ways are far beyond your understanding and will reveal themselves in time. You must walk with faith.
- Others have more responsibility than you. – God
- And he can handle it, and then some. So when things get hard to carry, lay them at his feet – he can handle them for a while while you rest…Job 38-42
So Anita left me a message of comfort on my darkest day. God reached me through friends. The suffering ended, for now. Now I am calm and seek to deepen my relationship with Him and begin my process of being comfortable alone with Him.
Greg–we’re always thinking of you from Chicago! I’ll redouble my efforts to send you all the support we can. Rey and I are always here for you, even if we don’t do such a good job of communicating it.
Wow Greg, this one really hit home. And i read a book that talked about the Middle Road or the Middle Path. The metaphor stuck for me. But I see it more like a platform, like in the Indiana Jones movie where the 2 people are doing this ‘dance’ frantically tring to keep it in balance.
As humans, we have a tendancy to sway from one side to the other- and skim over the middle. If we are in the deepest recesses of our pain, our tendancies are to run toward things that makes us feel so good. And then we find ourselves out of balance yet once again on the other side. Sometimes I think that is when addictions take hold- out of fear of slipping to the other side once again. And when you’re moving quickly and not paying attention and just checking out, heck, you can fall right off the edge!
Finding the middle (for me) means recognizing and being aware of when my pain is making me want to run so quickly toward pleasure. I stop, and I try to just be in the moment, the now, and breathe and remember that THIS IS THE PAIN OF HUMAN EXISTANCE… we are absolutely not alone in our pain. Our pain is human pain and it is shared. And in those moments, just like when Jesus was on the cross… suffering so deeply, he GAVE OUT LOVE- he was making sure his mother was taken care of by John and he was comforting the ’sinner’ on his left and assuring him of his place in heaven.
So when I’m wailing on the floor, a mere puddle of a human being, I try to remember: THIS IS THE STUFF OF LIFE. THIS IS A BLESSING. I Am GREATFUL FOR EVEN THIS Lord. And though it hurts…I give out LOVE and sympathy for human kind who suffers just as much as I do.
When I have done that, God shows up. Phone calls, texts, timely letters. I’ve even felt a physical presence at times… maybe that is a letter for another time. But, I find that I become a much more compassionnate person, and somehow, my pain lessens. If even for a moment… so I can scoot a little closer toward the middle of the platform. Its a calmer place to reside… a place where I can hear from Him more clearly.
Am I perfect? Ugh, NO! These are just glimpses into my moments of revelation. I just wondered if it would help you. Living it out on a regular basis is ‘The Walk’. Some days, “The Talk” is much simpler… don’t you think?