Comfort
My friend Alicia just returned home from a trip to Europe and she brought me a memento--a rosary from the Montserrat monastery just outside of Barcelona. This past Sunday morning she gave it to me and told me about the Black Madonna depicted on the rosary--how the monastery is famous for her and her miracles. I thanked Alicia for her thoughtfulness and for most of the service I held the rosary in my hands.
I was getting over a flu bug that morning and still felt weak. I sat down for most of the singing. I threaded the rosary through my hands, and pressed the sharp edges of the cross into my palm. I looked at the crucifix while I felt the pain in my skin. And then I rubbed the small, brushed-metal, oval depiction of the Black Madonna, felt it smooth against my thumb, and I thought about comfort. How fitting that the two are connected--pain and comfort--with nothing but black beads in between. One strung after another. Like life events. Or minutes. Or heartbeats. I used to think of comfort as existing in its own right, but lately I see that comfort exists because sorrow and pain exist as well.
The last month of life was largely unexpected in the circumstances God had for us. Basically, we were asked to enter into a situation that would require a lot of us, where we could hopefully do some good. We said yes. Coming off the end of a whirlwind three weeks teeming with vast swings of emotions and expectations, I felt like when the sickness hit, that my body was catching up to my mental state. I was weak. Tired. Worn out.
Seth's parents had the boys for the weekend, and I was able to lay around for two days and not take care of anyone else. While it is always frustrating to me to be incapacitated, I kept having the idea occur to me that God was saying, "I am taking care of you. Let me."
It's not in my nature to accept that care. I would rather earn rest after a hard day's work than to be handed it for free. But rest became a necessity, so rest I did.
After the three weeks of crazy ended, it was really easy to think--oh, we could go back to that again. It wasn't so bad. We did alright. And that is all true--we did alright, and it wasn't awful. But it wasn't exactly good either. So much chaos can only be withstood for so long. It felt like survival, not like a life we were choosing to live. But my mind wouldn't let me rest--what if God was calling us to this chaos? What if we were meant to live that way? Because if I don't do it, who will? And if someone else does it, will they do it as well as I could? Questions, questions everywhere.
I think that getting sick was God's mercy. How quickly I was incapacitated by germs. How fast the pain took over and I had to lie down. How dependent I was on everyone else to make it through the day. It's not as if God told me we aren't ever going to enter into difficult situations again, or even that particular situation, but rather, that he can get along just fine without me, thank you very much. God doesn't necessarily need me. And the flip side of that was that during my pain--physical and emotional--he cared for me. Through Seth and his parents, through Noelle making dinner and cleaning the house, and through Alicia giving me a rosary.
Sometimes it's hard for me to know the right thing to do. Oftentimes I gauge what I feel called to do by the need I observe around me. It's not something from within, but something from without that I project onto myself. And lots of times, this works out fine--like when you hear a friend had a baby and you take her dinner. That's not bad. But sometimes, I start feeling like I have to do all of the big things, because the need exists, and because I'm a believer and that's what we do. And I think I forget that God has a whole Church from which to work from. Just because it is something that is needed, it doesn't necessarily mean it is needed from me. What's helped me lately is to ask myself if I am making that choice out of fear or out of love. Sometimes the answer isn't so clear. I think our initial "yes" was out of love. I think the "what now?!" questions are predominately from fear, even though love is there, too. I think it requires a lot of trust to allow myself to be removed from the equation.
{Caveat: I also think that I am probably on the far end of the spectrum on this. And really, more of the Church should be doing things that cause a little more of their personal discomfort. So, don't read this as a free pass. I just suffer from extreme anxiety in the realm of God-pleasing. (Which doesn't exist, by the way.)
This was a convoluted post. Kind of like my brain. Thanks for sticking with it, listen to this for a more poetic, concise way of saying things.} https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIAs1Qgt-PY
I was getting over a flu bug that morning and still felt weak. I sat down for most of the singing. I threaded the rosary through my hands, and pressed the sharp edges of the cross into my palm. I looked at the crucifix while I felt the pain in my skin. And then I rubbed the small, brushed-metal, oval depiction of the Black Madonna, felt it smooth against my thumb, and I thought about comfort. How fitting that the two are connected--pain and comfort--with nothing but black beads in between. One strung after another. Like life events. Or minutes. Or heartbeats. I used to think of comfort as existing in its own right, but lately I see that comfort exists because sorrow and pain exist as well.
The last month of life was largely unexpected in the circumstances God had for us. Basically, we were asked to enter into a situation that would require a lot of us, where we could hopefully do some good. We said yes. Coming off the end of a whirlwind three weeks teeming with vast swings of emotions and expectations, I felt like when the sickness hit, that my body was catching up to my mental state. I was weak. Tired. Worn out.
Seth's parents had the boys for the weekend, and I was able to lay around for two days and not take care of anyone else. While it is always frustrating to me to be incapacitated, I kept having the idea occur to me that God was saying, "I am taking care of you. Let me."
It's not in my nature to accept that care. I would rather earn rest after a hard day's work than to be handed it for free. But rest became a necessity, so rest I did.
After the three weeks of crazy ended, it was really easy to think--oh, we could go back to that again. It wasn't so bad. We did alright. And that is all true--we did alright, and it wasn't awful. But it wasn't exactly good either. So much chaos can only be withstood for so long. It felt like survival, not like a life we were choosing to live. But my mind wouldn't let me rest--what if God was calling us to this chaos? What if we were meant to live that way? Because if I don't do it, who will? And if someone else does it, will they do it as well as I could? Questions, questions everywhere.
I think that getting sick was God's mercy. How quickly I was incapacitated by germs. How fast the pain took over and I had to lie down. How dependent I was on everyone else to make it through the day. It's not as if God told me we aren't ever going to enter into difficult situations again, or even that particular situation, but rather, that he can get along just fine without me, thank you very much. God doesn't necessarily need me. And the flip side of that was that during my pain--physical and emotional--he cared for me. Through Seth and his parents, through Noelle making dinner and cleaning the house, and through Alicia giving me a rosary.
Sometimes it's hard for me to know the right thing to do. Oftentimes I gauge what I feel called to do by the need I observe around me. It's not something from within, but something from without that I project onto myself. And lots of times, this works out fine--like when you hear a friend had a baby and you take her dinner. That's not bad. But sometimes, I start feeling like I have to do all of the big things, because the need exists, and because I'm a believer and that's what we do. And I think I forget that God has a whole Church from which to work from. Just because it is something that is needed, it doesn't necessarily mean it is needed from me. What's helped me lately is to ask myself if I am making that choice out of fear or out of love. Sometimes the answer isn't so clear. I think our initial "yes" was out of love. I think the "what now?!" questions are predominately from fear, even though love is there, too. I think it requires a lot of trust to allow myself to be removed from the equation.
{Caveat: I also think that I am probably on the far end of the spectrum on this. And really, more of the Church should be doing things that cause a little more of their personal discomfort. So, don't read this as a free pass. I just suffer from extreme anxiety in the realm of God-pleasing. (Which doesn't exist, by the way.)
This was a convoluted post. Kind of like my brain. Thanks for sticking with it, listen to this for a more poetic, concise way of saying things.} https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIAs1Qgt-PY
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