Time to Empty

My heart is full of burden.  My spirit is heavy.  My eyes well with tears.  My brain turns with ideas and regrets and plans but does not know rest.  My bones ache as I move through the days with this weight.  Of my world.  Of the world?  I am tired but cannot sleep. Until the morning when I lie there pondering how the day might unfold poorly, adding to the weight.

Depression is not unfamiliar to me.  If it were simply discontentment with the way my world is, I would divorce the husband, move to another town, ride a scooter, speak a different language.  Whatever it would take to find joy.  But it isn't my external world.  It is the internal world.  Despite having a dear man who tries to love me, despite a job that I enjoy more often than not, despite a faith in a God who holds me close, despite all sorts of goodness and purpose in my life, this internal burden nags and holds me back.

Much of the time it is manageable.  Sometimes, not so much.  A friend of many years, a woman who I had mentored, prayed for, guided, and loved, died suddenly this fall.  She and I had contact off and on for about 15 years.  She made a poor choice-one often chosen by those in her situation, an on-again-off-again using addict, essentially taking her own life.  Everyone knows that the dope of today is more dangerous.  Cut with fentanyl and carfentanil, addicts die almost immediately. Watch the news and you will hear about deaths, often clusters, often in small towns.  The pain is palpable.  The mothers and fathers left behind.  Burying adult children with life insurance policies because this isn't the first overdose, because on some level, the family has resigned themselves to the inevitable.

Fear of death is not a motivator for those suffering in addiction. While narcan clinics are held and drug dealers are prosecuted for murder, the addicts are trying to find out who sold that "good" dope. Somewhere between fearless and hopeless is where the addict lives.  Somewhere between the adventurous "I'll try anything once," and the despair of "God, please don't let me wake up," is the addicts mentality.  Warnings of the danger, that they choose death every time they stick a needle in their body, that only 1 in 3 will find recovery, that it is easier to stay clean than get clean, falls on deaf ears, even as the pleading from the loved one to go to treatment.  It has been said that no one stops unless they want to, but that doesn't stop the families and friends from wanting.

I think of my friend, and others, for whom I have begged God's help. Did it fall on His deaf ears as well? I dismiss that idea, because my God is neither deaf nor able to ignore the pain of both wails and silent tears. Is earthly salvation just a sort of life insurance policy that the Almighty took out because He knew we were screw ups?  Again, I dismiss it and still hear this "did God really say..." whisper in the back of my mind.  If life is 100% fatal and full of pain, is there a point?  Yes, I stammer, but the questions pull me back to why did she die?  Did He save her from hell?  Or is she suffering hell now after the hell she suffered here?  I am not good enough or kind enough or obedient enough and must rely on Christ's mercy myself. If she is suffering, why might I not?

God feels far off, in another land, in another form, not Who I know or knew.  I still see evidence of His goodness, but it isn't the same.  There is a hollowness to me.  My soul does indeed pant for refreshment and comfort. Like I would caring for a child, I run through my needs: fed (check), slept (check), spent time with people who love me (check), cared for someone else (check), worked through any anger or resentment (check), spent time pondering God (check), laughed (check), watered (check), spent time walking outside (check). But I long for more of Him-true hunger and thirst in a visceral way not just flowery speech. Pondering on what I know of His goodness and reading His word is vital for me, but I long to sit near Him.  I cannot imagine being in His presence now, or ever really, I just want to know that all my faith is not for naught. That He really is who He says He is and that there is unequivocal evidence for hope, especially in this land of long, dark, cold nights.

Father, I believe that you are near.  But I desperately need you to be closer and make your presence tangible. This season of Advent, the whole of Christendom awaits the birth of our Savior, but I am so tired and fear I will miss it. That I miss you in the midst of these dark times of pain. That I miss the point and you are not here, not really, not for me, not for my people. Another people long ago thought the same, but they wanted you to overthrow the government.  I just want you to overthrow heartbreak and pain.  We need you.  And I need you more desperately than I have for a while. I am emptying all this pain and loss and mess from me that you might fill me with things to sustain me, even help me recover hope. Come soon, dear Jesus, but until you do, please give me your strength and peace. 

It isn't that this post is made to read, but it is made to be written.  This treatment for emotional and spiritual constipation is the only one that has been effective in the past. My apologies to any readers.