A few weeks ago I was talking with a friend who, to be honest, is having a hard time. And it isn’t just that she’s having a hard time; it’s that she’s been having a hard time for a long time. A Long Time. And it isn’t just that it’s been a long time; it’s that it’s been her Whole Life.
I won’t go into details (you’re relieved, aren’t you? Thank God, you are thinking, that Rebecca possesses At Least that much restraint. And Yes, I say. I can shut myself up, but mostly when it’s about Other People. If we’re talking about me then Ready Yourself: I am about to tell you Everything), but let’s just say that chronic pain features in her story. Chronic pain of the body, chronic pain in her memories, abuse and abandonment and Solitary Hard Times of the most rigorous order. There’s poverty, too, and Trying Hard, and God.
Yes, this friend loves God, and knows that He loves her. And much of what she endures is manageable Only because of that knowledge.
There are Vast Areas of her experience to which I absolutely cannot relate. In fact, our childhoods, our young adulthoods set side by side might render recognizable similarities only in gender, race, and age. Sad, isn’t it? I have had a charmed life.
And this is where Some gratitude comes in. Because, in recent years, I have also met with some suffering. You might not know it to see me, but it’s there. When our daughter was just four months old, the company my husband worked for went belly-up, and we have been, by and large, for the most part, pretty chronically struggling financially Ever Since.
And this has meant Other struggles, visible and invisible, and silent, or mostly silent, frustrations, and arguments, and upheavals, and possibilities that are Frightening.
Small change compared with the chronic struggles of my friend.
But we love to talk together, she and I, because our other commonality always comes into play, and that is God. Because, frankly, God is what has made our instability sufferable; He is the Constant in all of our questions. For each of us, when we’ve been pretty certain that the Bottom is Most Decidedly about to Drop Out, God has been there in the way that you need a friend to be there: Always Honest, and Always True.
You can tell either one of us that we are mistaken on this. You can argue that He is a figment, a social construct, a bit of undigested biscuit. But you can’t prove it.
So we were talking, she and I, about her latest struggle and its weight. And she said she’d just like to learn it– learn whatever lesson it is she is supposed to learn so that she can pass the test, and move on, and get out of this infernal suffering. As if, dear heart, He is just testing you, and referring to His checklist, and Bringing You Along.
I think that is Not what He is doing. I think instead He is asking, always asking, what it is He is also asking me: Do you trust Me? Do you trust Me? Do you trust me Now?
