Feeling Alone in the Struggle

 January, 2024 was a pretty all around shitty month for myself and many of my friends and so it’s been challenging to look positively at this “New Year” and declare it good or happy. I have been through three weeks at work that I would consider hell as an agency we worked with that provided mental health services, and housed the entire team I worked with, ended up being basically shut down and my team members all laid off. I was the sole team member left to contact our twenty clients and let them know that their therapist, case worker and peer specialist who had been providing intensive in-home services to the young person in their family would no longer be seeing them and I am calling to help them find a new provider. People were not happy. I was not happy. The whole situation at the agency that closed was messy and sad and truthfully so disappointing (I’m being very vague and very nice here).

My friend has an elderly mom who fell and broke the second hip in six months, the sewer line broke in her mom’s house, at the same time her sister had a horrible accident and was in the ICU and my friend had to prepare mom to not only go to rehab but transition to assisted living after living independently for 99 years. 

Another friend spent eighteen days of the month helping her sister after she had back surgery with all sorts of amazing hardware put in and around her spine.  Other friends and family had health issues, ongoing grief and loss, Covid (hard stop). And then I received a call that our good friends’ son took his own life. (See my previous post.)

Sweet Jesus, what are we supposed to do with all of that? How are we supposed to navigate so much struggle, and grief and loss and still, like, live and be functional? (I just read a post by the partner of the young man who died and she wrote, “I don’t understand how the world can just keep spinning while I feel so absolutely heartbroken.”)

I am actually a person of deep faith and even I had to just sit for a bit, shake my head over and over again in disbelief, let some expletives fly out of my mouth, talk to people and yell a few more f-bombs, drink some wine, cry…a lot…more than I have  probably cried since I was a young child, and then just sit…and eventually hold it all out to God and say, “Take this shit. I can’t hold it anymore.”

Thankfully, God did take it. It’s not that everything went away and life was once again rosy (ha ha, as if…), but I was reminded in a number of ways that I - and my dear, struggling friends - are not walking this road alone. Oh yeeeeaaaaahhhhhh. Why is it I always kinda forget that in the heat of the moment?

It’s ironic because many many years ago I glommed on to a Bible verse that originally found its home in our checkbook, written out on a nice 3x5” index card that just stayed there in the register so every time I balanced or even just opened the checkbook I’d see it.  It got pretty tattered up and I eventually did throw it away, but it was there for a good number of years! The verse is from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy when Moses knows that he won’t be entering the Promised Land and he’s trying to encourage and remind Joshua, the new leader who will take his place, that he has nothing to fear.  

He says, “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake (abandon) you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

I love this verse because when things hit the fan we can feel sooo lonely, and so alone. We can feel like no one else has a clue, everyone else’s life is great - or at least “fine” - and we’re alone in the struggle, alone in the misery, alone to figure out what in the heck we’re supposed to do or how we’re supposed to respond or even move.

God never abandons his people. Even when we can’t see God’s hand at work, even when we can’t feel God’s presence…God is always there.  Somehow just taking a moment, taking a deeeeep breath, and consciously acknowledging that truth…it helps. It’s stopping and reminding ourselves, oh yeah, oh yeah, I actually know this and believe it. I am not alone. The God of the universe - or your higher power or whatever you choose to call that great big Presence of pure Love, is with me…even in the shit. God is actually carrying me and loving me deeply and strengthening me for all the things.

It’s a promise. And it’s a promise we can go to the bank on. This big God of the universe loves us so much that no matter how insignificant we might feel, God is there and wanting the very best for us in the midst of our circumstances. O thank you God, that you don’t give up on us, that you don’t blow us off and figure we can handle it. You are always there.

All I can do is be grateful…and choose to remember and believe God’s there, and lean in.

I Raise My Ebenezer…to Dylan

I just read something by author Sarah Bessey as she talked about an Ebenezer, a sort of monument or touchstone that is left along a path or somewhere along a journey. It is a marker or reminder that something happened here. Many times it’s an acknowledgement of one of those liminal times or spaces when God came near or simply that our eyes were opened to God’s presence or work or power in that moment or in that place and we need to somehow mark it, take note of it. Mark that place so when you come upon it again you will remember what happened there.

I received a phone call from a friend today who informed me that the grown son of some good friends of ours, Dylan, took his own life last night. My heart is broken for them, for him, for his sister, for his two young sons. I’m so angry. I’m so grateful that my own two grown kids are still walking this earth and are, for the most part, healthy and happy people. I don’t understand how or why my kids have been spared from tragedies like this and my friend’s haven’t. I am reminded of how fleeting our own happiness is, our own security is - how our hope for the future can dissipate like smoke into the air and life can seem literally without hope it seems, in the blink of an eye.  I think many have experienced something close to that at one point or another in their lifetimes. It’s scary…and it’s so sad. I deal with the families of kids who have been in that place and it’s easy for the family to get sucked into that hopelessness and helpless feeling as well.

But even in this hard place of grief and confusion and no clear way forward I take note of this time and this space. I am not alone. My friends are not alone in their deep grief either. Whether we feel God’s presence or not we know God is here in our midst grieving right along with us, arm slung around us helping us to take each painful step forward and, despite the very present pit in my stomach, I know God will continue to be with us all as we go through our days and the reality of Dylan’s absence becomes more and more real.

I can’t help but picture Dylan’s big smile as I think of him. He and his partner and their son used to live right around the corner from us and often walked by our house on the way to the park. He had a sheepish grin that belied the apparent pain that was going on beneath the surface. Dylan struggled in his short life, but it’s his smile that will always stick with me.

My heart hurts to think of the journey our dear friends are starting this day without their beloved son. Much of who I am hinges on words, but there are no words that can touch this pain. So I will keep vigil for my friends, keeping them close to my heart, sending them my love every moment I can, and praying that God continues to carry them and hold them so very close as they meet each new day.  I’ve marked this moment, this place in time with this writing. This is my Ebenezer. I will remember you, Dylan. Your life meant something to me. I’m glad your pain is over and you are now able to fully experience God’s great love for you.