Frailty

I am looking back on this past summer with my brows furrowed in deep frustration.  

It was a summer of self-discovery and inspiration, hungering for more knowledge of myself and of Yahweh and his Spirit and his Son, peace and contentment of my soul.  I fell asleep each night lulled to the world of dreams by the quiet whispering of the One I love, the Spirit residing within my own soul.  I was in passionate love.  

Why, then, am I so emotionally distant from the same One with whom I was enamored a mere few months before?  Oh, I know the answer.  I do.  Not just to this question, but to the hundreds of questions that have attacked the security of my heart since coming back to Chicago and beginning this life again.  I was hoping that the answer would be more complex, more terrifying.  And in reality, it is, because simplicity is a rare glimmer of peace in a world of chaos.  The answer, it seems, is a not-so-unique emotional reaction to a new season of life and circumstances, and lack of communication with my God.   

Oh, my pride.  I thought I was harder to crack than all of that, I honestly did.  Even through my own blatant past mistakes, even under breaking circumstances, I knew my God stood next to me and I never faltered in recognizing his presence.  It has never occurred to me not to. 

Until now.

And now, I know I am frail.  I used my own pride as an excuse to cut off communication from the One who loves me best.  How dare you let me be lonely, I thought.  How dare you take away my security—my community, convenient access to you, my friends, those who know and care for me so well, my Kingdom-enriching job that I loved, my church, my everything.  How dare you open up the Old Testament to me and make me realize you are not as familiar to me as I thought.  How dare you let me feel depressed and lonely, purposeless and afraid. 

I have hurled bitter accusations in defense against that army of invasive questions often in the past few months; they have become more dull but have maintained their presence consistently, especially the past two weeks when almost every night I find it impossible to sleep until just before I have to wake up. 

I accused, and steamed in anger and confusion and ignorance and fear.  I crossed my arms over my chest, stuck up my nose, and closed my eyes.  I felt enlightened by the nothingness I felt for him and completely sorrowful at the loss of rock-hard strength I had known not so long before.  I dared God to make me feel peaceful again. 

And then I went home for a long weekend.  And, as they say, shit got real…on multiple levels.  I was confronted with everything I have been missing. 

I saw some of most important people in my life.  Tim and Jennifer Ayers picked me up from the bus stop and took me directly to my doctor’s appointment.  Because I am Christ’s and therefore their own daughter and they love me.  I spent the evening with Bekah Sardar and we lay on a blanket with her brother and mother and watched the stars and the candle in the newly carved pumpkin flicker in the darkness, laughing at Isaiah’s innocent energy.  I helped her pack for California and we talked about our emotional and spiritual exhaustion until the sun was only an hour or so away from warming our side of the earth again. 

I spent the day with my family at my grandparent’s farm in rural Indiana.  I held Braylen tightly in my lap as we slowly hovered over the grass in the go-kart, with which later Caleb and I cut lines and figure eights in my grandpa’s fields. 

I went to church on Sunday morning and listened to David Bell.  It is rare for a sermon to speak directly to my current situation, but when David spoke of the disciples who refused to abandon Christ, asking, “To whom else will we go?” my soul wept inside of me. 

I spent that evening (and the wee hours of Monday morning) sitting and listening to my dear friend Cally Abdelsayed, who moved to New York and got married while I was in Costa Rica, and whom I had not seen in almost two years.  Just her presence was comforting and reassuring.

But my heart continued to weep the next day when I had coffee with David and explained that I have felt miserable, confused, exhausted, lonely, and abandoned. And that I am unsure about the legitimacy of the Bible as proof of God’s existence and how flat out crazy our beliefs really are.  Legitimately insane.  And after much discussion and some tears on my part, he prayed for me.  In the end, we had come to the same conclusion as he did on Sunday and as the disciples did on that day that some abandoned Christ: 

To whom else will we go?

On the drive to the bus, I explained to my dad, in what seemed like broken English to me, what I was feeling.  And when we got to the bus stop and it was time for me to get out of the car and I fell into weeping, he held me and told me he would have the strength that I didn’t.  It amazes me how one man can have the strength of all the people he has strength for. 

So after a very full, very emotional, and very exhausting weekend, I came back to Chicago.  Homesick. 

A few days ago, David, Eness Jarvis, and Rob Yonan—three incredibly influential and dear people in my life—came to visit.  After Chicago deep-dish pizza and good conversation, they left.  Homesick. 

I am being as honest as possible.  It has been an incredibly rough semester and I cannot wait for it to be over.  I know the end of the semester does not mean the end of this complex thing I am struggling with.  But it means Christmas and warmth and familiarity.  It means Josh comes back from France.  It means music and “Silent Night” candles and building a snowman with Braylen.  It means I will be full of what I need when I return next semester, and that even if next semester is just as hard as this one, I will be assured of something good.  Like after my long weekend at home, I came back to Chicago still frustrated and sorrowful, but full of the knowledge that the people I spent time with care about my wellbeing and that, although I feel lonely, I am not alone. 

So, I have no happy ending for this story because it is still going on.  I dropped a class to relieve some stress, which has been nice.  But I am still just at the beginning of turning accusations into genuine questions of “How dare you still love me after such pride and weakness?” “How dare you give me a few friends in Chicago to keep me from total loneliness?” “How dare you forgive me over and over and over again?” “How dare you call me daughter?”

For everything there is a season.  I have known what it is to stand on a mountain and feel the Spirit so clearly that he is like the wind running his fingers through my hair.  And now I know what it is to walk blindly through the dark night of the soul, where wind stands still and nothing living dwells.  But I will wait for the rising of the son to bathe me in his warm essence and soak my eyes in mud and run his airy fingers through my hair.  As long as it takes. 

Methoughts I heard one crying, Child!

And I replied, My Lord.

-The Collar, George Herbert

Yours, 

Micaela